Grave
by ArentYouSophiaLoren-8887
Summary: Drew and Bianca are trying to work out their relationship, but both of them have to face their own demons before they can begin to heal together.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This is a middle piece to accompany "Limits" and "The Perfect Space". If you haven't read those already, I would recommend that you read those before you read this one, or at least read "Limits", because this is the sequel to that story. You don't necessarily HAVE to read "Limits" before reading this one, but hey, why not give it a try? Because apart from basically setting up the entire story of this fic with some key plot details, "Limits" is probably the fic that I'm most proud of having written, and I've never had the urge to delete it (which, if you read me regularly, you know is a pretty big deal). **

**Because both "Limits" and "The Perfect Space" were written before New Beginnings aired, this fic will go AU. It takes place where Now Or Never left off at the end of "Dead And Gone" Part II, in the summer between that and New Beginnings. The events that happen in this story will bridge the gap and lead up to "The Perfect Space", which I guess is an epilogue of sorts.**

**This will be switching point of views between Drew and Bianca as they navigate their relationship after everything that's happened since Spring Break while also dealing with their separate traumas and emotional struggles.**

**I owe an enormous thanks to necklace890 for helping this story finally come to be. She took a trainwreck of an outline and helped me trim it down to a salvageable story. Plus, she's a great brainstormer and diehard Drianca shipper like me, and she never let me give up on myself when I was getting frustrated. So she's basically awesome all around =)**

**Reminder that I am on Twitter: AlbatrossTam14 (protected tweets)**

**Also on Tumblr: welldeservedobscurity**

**I don't own Degrassi.**

**I.**

Even though she's been staying with them for almost two weeks now, for some reason Bianca still has a hard time falling asleep in the Torres's guest bedroom.

It's a lot nicer than her own, certainly a lot bigger and brighter, and she has her own bathroom and an enormous closet and a great view of the park from outside her window. But there are nights that it's still hard to fall asleep.

When she does sleep, she usually dreams. Sometimes it's of Vince, other times Anson, and sometimes it's about nothing at all. Sometimes she's just standing there, feeling the shifting give and take of the earth under her feet as the world erodes away beneath her.

She usually wakes up gasping in a sweat, and sometimes there are tears on her cheeks. It takes her a minute to remember where she is, to remember that she needs to fight the urge to run. Sometimes she's almost out of bed before she finally does remember, and she has to untangle her legs from the sheets, taking deep breaths until she calms down.

She's a free woman, done with guns and gangs. She's not in that world anymore.

She's safe now.

As if anything could get her here, anyway. The Torreses have a security system installed on their house, with a keypad next to the garage door. For some reason it kinda freaks her out, even though it's supposed to be what keeps the spooky things away. She's never lived in a house that was protected by more than a flimsy chain on the door, and this alarm makes her feel jumpy, even though it's probably one of those paranoid suburban mom things, put up to make people feel safer rather than actually protecting anyone. It's not about what it keeps out, it's what it's keeping in. And no reason why a little extra security shouldn't help. Besides, even if she were sleeping on the street in a cardboard box, Vince or Anson still can't hurt her.

Still. That fucking alarm always weirds her out. There are some nights when she wakes up at some random noise in the house and just lays in the guest bed, waiting for the thing to go off like a siren, like an emergency. Like danger. Like everything coming back to get her.

**II.**

Bianca never says she's staying, but she always ends up not leaving, again and again and again, and his parents don't say anything about it. So she stays, and joins their dinner table, and does her own laundry. Drew notices the smell of her detergent is the same as the kind his mom uses. It makes her start to even smell like his house, like she's always been here. He memorizes the sound of her feet on his kitchen floor.

**III.**

The weirdest little thing about staying with the Torreses isn't all that weird compared to the grand fact that she's _staying with the Torreses_.

But for all the weirdness of the whole situation, one thing that she can't get over is how cold this house is. Literally. She's used to her place with the old, outdated units, the kind that aren't attached to the house but you buy and haul home yourself. She has one in the window of her bedroom. She used to get annoyed by its constant clank, rattle, and wheeze, and it only cooled a three-foot area, so she had to push her bed as close as possible to the piece of crap in order to feel the air. Most nights she slept without clothes, just out of pure necessity – it was fucking boiling in her cramped little bedroom, and there was no other way to get cool on the most humid nights that threatened to smother her.

But the central A/C in the Torres house is just eerie. It's too quiet. It makes the whole house hum, like there's a restless current hidden in the atmosphere. When the A/C does click on, it scares the shit out of her, even though it barely makes a noise – there's just an upheaval in the air around her and whoosh, here comes the rush of cold wind out of nowhere. It's like she's in a freaking _Paranormal Activity_ sequel and she's at the part where the ghost shows up, and all you hear is the scream before it goes black.

It's almost the middle of summer, so hot outside that her flip flops seem to melt into the street every time she steps outside. But inside, it's so cold that she wears Drew's borrowed sweats, because even when it's unbearable outside she needs to be bundled up in this house.

But she does kind of like wearing his clothes, enormous as they are on her. It's like wearing armor, soft and Drew-smelling, and when she lays down and they swallow her in the folds of extra fabric, it's like someone else's skin on top of hers. Like someone helping her hold herself together. It's a nice feeling to have, especially after so many months of feeling like someone was ripping her inside-out, and the only skin she felt on hers was someone's who made it crawl. Or bruise.

And since she knows he doesn't belong to her, this is almost the next best thing.

**IV.**

Then one night his mother tells Adam to pass the asparagus and asks Bianca what her plans are.

Drew stops mid-chew. Beside him, he feels Adam tense, and both of them keep their heads down and eyes up.

Bianca twirls a bit of salad on the end of her fork, staring at her plate.

"I wasn't sure," she says. "Besides what the lawyer tells me."

His mother doesn't say anything. Neither does Bianca, whose eyes skitter around the table at the rest of them. Her eyes find Drew's for a second, then look back down at her salad, hanging her head like a prisoner receiving a sentencing.

"I meant about the living situation," his mother says.

Bianca flinches, her eyes still on her food.

"Whatever you think is best," she murmurs.

His mother nods. She pokes at her chicken her fork, then clears her throat.

"I guess it's settled, then," she says.

Adam and Drew exchange glances.

"Meaning what?" Adam asks Mom.

"Meaning everything's fine like it is," she says. "Unless anybody has a better idea."

Bianca finally lifts her head up, eyes wide. His mother doesn't make any further comment, just goes back to eating.

Drew looks at Bianca and she just shrugs, and that pretty much does it. He's more than a little surprised that his mother isn't dragging this out into a painfully long discussion, or just holding up one hand in that gesture Drew knows so well and saying, "Because I said so" as she kicks Bianca out, but he's definitely not gonna question it.

Still, it's awkward to say the least, and not just because Adam makes some stupid comment about padlocks on bedroom doors, and his mother gives him one of those looks that says she will completely fuck him up, bum arm or not, if he finishes that statement. After that, Adam slinks away and Bianca practically tiptoes back to the guest room. Drew has to help his mom clear the table, then stands in the kitchen alone, hands on his hips like he has no idea where to put himself. And he really doesn't, to be honest.

It's not until he's getting ready for bed that it really hits him: Bianca is upstairs, as in only a few feet above him, as in _living in his house_. Like she actually _lives here_. It makes him feel weirdly self-conscious; but that's stupid, because she's basically been living with them for the past two weeks.

Plus, it's not like they haven't already slept together since she's been staying here. Twice.

Even though he has a girlfriend. Even though they're both still wrecks. Even though they're going on acting like nothing's changed, because if his mom knew she'd kill Drew and then bring him back to life just to kill him again.

But to him, those stretches of days right after prom feel like they didn't really count. Like they happened another lifetime ago, or like they weren't actually real days at all. Like they were just a dream. Plus, it's not like any of them expected Bianca's living situation to actually be permanent.

He crawls into bed and tries to keep his thoughts focused on something stupid, or running football plays in his mind. He feels like she can see his thoughts, even though he knows that's impossible and stupid as shit. She's upstairs and _people can't read minds_. But it still kind of freaks him out even though he can't explain why.

**V.**

Living with Drew every night turns out to be…not living with Drew every night. With Drew's bedroom on the basement level and Bianca staying in the guest bedroom upstairs – which happens to be conveniently located next to the master bedroom – it's hard to sneak around, and Bianca's situation is so up in the air as it is that she's afraid of rocking the boat. The last thing she needs is to upset Dragon Lady and get herself thrown out, because without Drew's parents still agreeing to help her out she's as good as screwed– in jail and out of options.

Besides. He's still, technically, with Katie. And he hasn't said anything about what he's going to do about that.

It's the elephant in the room. The huge pink fucking elephant with the big loud trunk that refuses to just go away, always needs to be heard:

_Boiler Room Bianca, Boiler Room Bianca, Boiler Room Bianca…_

On the nights they actually get together, they actually _do_ sleep, not just fuck; and even when they do fuck, it's more like something she's never had before than too much like before, or even like what _they've_ done before. It's a need more than a want, a pain rather than an itch. It's solace, and it's a hell, too. Because they're still so raw with it all that sometimes it's like they're ripping themselves apart while they're coming together, like they're trying to burn that hell through each other as they try and find some relief from it.

But on the nights when they actually _do_ rest, it turns out there isn't much resting. They both fall asleep fine, their bodies pressed against one another, feeling warm and safe, and he doesn't stop touching her. Even when they're asleep, he's pressed against her shoulder, an arm draped over her hip, a hand holding hers. But it's always a couple of hours later when one of them either jerks awake or needs to be woken up, because their hells are still burning, filling their dreams, and it's the alley, always the alley, she's never sure which one but does it really matter, because both times it was an alley and both times it was blood and tears and they saved each other.

Every time she's dreaming of the alley, she always turns and runs. But no matter how hard and fast she is, how hard she tries to get away, the more she feels like she's just falling.

He's always got her, she knows. But still – the dream get more and more real, and she keeps falling farther and farther into darkness, as if the earth is swallowing her whole. As if it wants her back.

**VI.**

It's funny, how before everything, he thought that all skies were the same. Especially at night. When it looked empty and felt colder, heavier. Like being buried alive. But after spending so long fearing the dark, he's come to a grudging…less fear of it.

There are still boogeymen in the closet, monsters under the bed, creatures looming in the shadows. They're all real, even if they can't hurt him anymore. They're still there, waiting for him whenever he closes his eyes.

Not that he'd ever admit it.

But not every night sky is the same. He can admit to that.

Tonight, the sky is overcast, and there's heat lightning glowing in the blackness every now and then. The night has a dirty, glossy sheen of crow's wings; the clouds look almost purple. They look like smoke that blots out every star, every sliver of moonlight.

"You need to figure out what to do."

Bianca is curled into the seat next to his. She's wearing his sweatshirt, and her arms disappear into the long sleeves as she holds her knees into her chest. "With Katie."

He watches the silent flashes of light make the sky go purple-grey, the color of a bruise. "What do you think I should do?"

"Please. Don't look at me for relationship advice."

"Who else am I going to ask?" he says. He turns to her. "Honestly."

Bianca pulls her legs tighter into her, like she's trying to be as small as possible.

"I'm not going to tell you to break up with her," she says. "If you want her, be with her. If you don't, be with me. But I'm not the one who's gonna make you feel better about whatever choice you make."

She hunches into the chair more, stretching his hoodie over her bare legs.

"I'm not gonna be her," she says suddenly.

"Who?" he asks.

"That girl," Bianca says. "The one you come back to every time things fall apart with someone else." She turns to him. "You either do this, or not. I'm not going to be that girl anymore. It's all or nothing."

He remembers the night in the alley – the second time, when she came back to him. It was hot that night, and running had made his clothes stick to him like static and conviction. It felt a little surreal, actually, though that might just have been the adrenaline and memories coursing through him then. Ones like Adam crying and blood and slick metal and Adam hurt and fist hitting bone with a crack he could hear and holding Katie's waist as he spun her around on the dance floor and Adam squeezing his hand and the sound of a gunshot and the flicker of the strobe light and Adam –

Then, all replaced by a weird sense of calm. He doesn't really remember this part much, because when he thinks about it, it feels like it was a whole other person in the scene – like Drew Torres had been split into two people, and only one of them was running the show. This other Drew was the one who gave Bianca his jacket (because even though it was practically tropical weather that night, she was still shivering, and couldn't stop even when he wrapped it around her shoulders), who made Katie call the cops, who squeezed her hand and kissed her cheek and whispered how everything would be okay, shh, shh, it's all okay, shh. Then this Drew walked Bianca over to the cops when they showed up, and had her sit down and explain everything she could. This Drew wasn't feeling scared or angry; he wasn't even upset anymore. He didn't feel anything, except purpose. He knew exactly what to do, like someone else was pushing the buttons. And all the while, another Drew was hiding in the darkness, still in tears but trying to get it together, watching this Drew take over.

He wishes – stupidly – that he could still be those two Drews. Still be the guy Katie wants him to be. He'd be lying if he said he didn't like that part of himself when he was with her; Supportive Guy, Encouraging Guy, Mr. Perfect Boyfriend.

But he'd be lying if he thought he'd always be happy like that.

That guy he is with Katie, that's only one part of him. She doesn't see the whole picture, and he doesn't think she'd able to. And if he's being totally honest, he doesn't think he wants her to.

Bianca's right. He can't have it both ways.

But he wishes it didn't have to come down to taking sides. Because that means someone gets hurt. And he doesn't want it to be anyone.

"I'm going to break up with her," he announces.

She looks at him. "You sure?"

He nods. "I'm not in love with her."

Bianca rests her head on her knees. "Were you ever?" she asks softly.

"No," he says, and he knows that's true. He stares up at the sky, at the heat lightning flashing in the distance.

"I thought, maybe…" he adds, "I could. Maybe…someday. But…it wasn't really. I was just glad she was there. After all the shit that happened."

She doesn't look back at him. She looks out at the street instead.

"For a little while," Bee says slowly, still staring out into the street, "I thought so, too."

The tone of her voice makes him hurt.

"What?" he tries for a joke. "That you were in love with Katie?"

Bianca doesn't swat at him or roll her eyes or say anything. She just stares at him. Her face is soft, and with flashes of light fading from the sky it looks like all the lines and shapes that make up her face just disappear; like she's nothing but these wide eyes that look like they have too much sadness in them to hold inside a person.

"I really thought you chose her," she whispers.

He can't say anything, or even move. She keeps staring at him with that sky-eyed look.

"I didn't," he finally whispers back. "I don't."

**VII.**

In order to stay out of Mrs. Torres's hair, Bianca avoids ever asking her for anything. She does her own laundry when both of Drew's parents are at work, and buys her own toilet paper to keep in the guest bathroom. She says yes to everything Drew's mom asks her, because she's afraid of what will happen if she says no. She clears the table after dinner without being asked, picks up trash that isn't her own. She tries to play Good Girl even when his mom isn't looking, because she feels like the woman's always watching her. And except for those few nights when she risks it, she avoids Drew as much as she can. She doesn't even like going to the basement unless she has Adam with her, just so mom won't automatically think she's going to Drew's room.

They don't get to talk much since she got the official word from Mrs. Torres that she could move in, but she does like knowing that they're only separated by a single story. Even though she dares not make any type of move that his mother could possibly see, she feels better knowing he's just below her. It even makes the spooky click of the A/C and the watchful blinking light of the house alarm scare her a little less.

Doesn't help much with everything else, though. Like how this play she's acting isn't really fooling anyone, least of all Drew's mom, or that the woman still hates her, and even though she doesn't say much Bianca can still feel the weight of her judgment. And how everyone knows Bianca doesn't really _live_ here. This isn't a life. It's just…convenient.

Drew is the kind of person who belongs in a house like this. The kind with expensive and useless security systems; stainless steel microwaves built into the wall instead of the cheap plastic kind you buy for thirty bucks and plug into an outlet; windows that go from the ceiling to the floor. The kind of person with a mom who knows what questions to ask their doctor; who gets a new car for his eighteenth birthday; who knows how to fill out university applications. Who has a university future at all.

Nothing she is makes sense here. Not her fake IDs, her police record. Her Child Services social worker, her probation officer. Her numerous suspensions, her drug use. Her food stamps and generic brand groceries.

Still, she keeps up the routine. Does the dishes, cleans the counters, holds her breath whenever Drew's mom asks her something and hopes to God she's giving the right answer.

**VIII.**

They spend a rainy Friday night in Adam's bedroom, Drew and Bianca lying sideways across the bed while the three of them listen to Eminem go on about the shitty hand life dealt him. But it's still a fun night, because they have a few bags of Doritos between them and when Drew gets cheesy stains on the sheets Adam squawks in protest, and the brothers end up throwing hunks of Cooler Ranch at each other while Bianca goes into hysterics, torso slumped over the edge of the bed as she laughs so hard she can't breathe.

Drew doesn't remember falling asleep, and he doesn't remember how he ended up on the couch, either. But he wakes up to Adam standing over him in the bonus room poking him in between the shoulder blades.

"What?" he mumbles, swatting Adam's hand away.

"Bianca's on my bed," he says, and what? Drew stares at his brother. "Fell asleep after you left."

He turns his face back into the couch and away from Adam. "So?"

"So," Adam says, annoyed. "She's your…whatever she is. Anyway, she's yours. So go move her."

"Dude, she's not a futon. Just wake her up and ask her to move."

"You do it," Adam argues. "Come on, man. Don't ask the guy who got shot to wake up the cranky sleeping person."

"I think I just did," he replies, but pushes himself up anyway.

Sure enough, Bianca's draped across the end of Adam's bed, arms and legs stretched all the way out and feet and hands dangling over the edges. She looks so sprawled out and free and quiet and _safe _that it feels like a crime to wake her up. For a minute Drew considers staying on the sofa tonight, letting Adam use his bed and just leaving Bianca here, because right now she looks like she's never had a bad dream or a bad reality before.

But he goes to her, and after hesitating a moment when he sees her calm, still face, he gives her shoulder a little shake.

"Bee," he whispers. "Bianca. Come on, wake up."

She cracks one eye open, then lets it fall shut again.

"Bianca," he says louder, feeling like an ass for not just letting her sleep. "Come on. We gotta go."

She lets out another sigh, then pushes herself up on her forearms. "What time is it?"

"Late. Time for bed. A real bed."

Bianca shrugs herself awake, blinking owlishly in Adam's bare bedroom light. She slips off the end of the bed and stumbles out, following Drew as Adam climbs under the covers.

Bianca follows him into the bonus room, then pauses when they reach the couch. She looks down at the space on the cushions where Drew had been only minutes ago, then back at him. He stares back at her, and without a word they both turn and head for his bedroom.

**IX.**

Neither of them bothers with wasting any more energy than what it takes to settle into a comfy space under the sheets, still in their clothes. Bianca tucks her coils of hair around her head and Drew shifts next to her, trying to find a comfortable space for his arm before draping it across her waist, brushing up against the bare skin where her shirt rides up her stomach.

Bianca inhales just the slightest bit, but Drew's fingers don't venture anywhere else. His hand curls around the hollows of her ribs. The fingers mold to the spaces between her bones like they're supposed to fit there.

"Sleep?" he asks. She's not sure why he's making it a question.

She relaxes against him, pressing her body closer to his. "It's good," she whispers. She's already sinking back into a world of silence and light, a dream she won't remember and is glad she doesn't need to forget.

**X.**

It's hard for him to focus on anything but her face brushed up against his, her hair loose and wispy and tickling his nose, his lips, his throat. He just lays there for a while, trying not to wake her up.

It's funny to him, how the first time they woke up in bed together, they were both naked and wounded and didn't want to talk about it, not until they got sideways again a few days later when he realized he couldn't leave her out of his life. He can tell by a pretty fucking raging hard-on that he's definitely more than willing for a repeat, but he doesn't try to do anything, doesn't make any more of an effort to move than it takes to blink himself awake and lay next to her face to face, whispering her name when he hears her start to stir.

He isn't sure if she's awake yet, but he can see her nose and the corners of her mouth twitch, and her brow furrows like she's considering something. Her eyelashes flutter, and when she opens her eyes she looks at him in this unguarded way she never has before, not even in the alley on prom night or after they'd escaped Anson or when he looked at her through the window of that police car and she'd whispered, "thank you". It's soft and bare, and up this close her eyes look more green than brown; he never noticed that before.

He wonders if he should feel awkward like this. And that's kind of a weird thing to think, seeing as how they've had sex more than a few times since she started living here. But this is different than just waking up naked next to someone. Here he is, fully clothed and inches away from her face, and yeah, his dick is definitely telling her everything he isn't saying. But she doesn't try to move away or make a joke, just stares at him with those wide eyes, and Drew decides this isn't weird. They're nose to nose and neither of them need to say anything and this isn't weird at all, just staring at each other like it's not Tuesday and they never killed someone and never went to Hell and back.

**XI.**

"Are you ready to begin your deposition, Miss DeSousa?"

The lawyer Drew's parents hired sits calmly on the other side of the conference table. He has a tape recorder placed in the center, the red light blinking. It reminds Bianca of that stupid house alarm, and how much it spooks her.

_Shut up_, she snaps at herself. _Get your shit together._

Mrs. Torres sits at the end of the table with the same stern expression, the same rigid posture, the same bristling confidence as always. If the ride over here with just the two of them already made Bianca's stomach feel queasy, she figures it's only a taste of what will come when she gives her statement in front of this woman who doesn't like her.

"Remember," the lawyer says. "You need to verbalize all answers, and you're sworn to tell the whole truth."

_I've seen enough Law & Order_.Bianca shoots a glance out of the corner of her eye at Drew's mother, about to hear every ugly detail about the past few months of her life. _Anything you say can and will be used against you. _

"I know," is all Bianca says.

He nods. "Are we ready to begin?"

_Not fucking way. _"Yes."

The lawyer reaches over the table and clicks on the RECORD button.

"Let's start with the defendant. Vincent Bell. How did you two become acquainted?"

Bianca clears her throat, then flushes at the sound it makes in the icy silence of the office. "I met Vince the day after his…after one of his guys tried to attack me."

"That associate being the deceased, Anson West?"

"Yes. He attacked me when I was coming home from a concert."

"And that would have been the night of April 26th, 2012."

"Yeah-yes." She corrects herself. She tries to take a breath, but it burns in her chest when she does.

"Miss DeSousa, can you tell me why Vincent Bell came in contact with you at this time?"

"He was trying to blackmail me," Bianca says. "Us. Both of us. Because of…"

She can see Mrs. Torres shift in her seat.

"Because of what happened to Anson," Bianca finishes.

"Us being you and…"

"Drew Torres," she nods.

"And Mr. Torres was with you the night of the attack?"

"Is this really necessary?" Drew's mom breaks in. "My son already gave his statement about this event and was cleared of all charges."

"I know that, Mrs. Torres," the lawyer says. "But it's important that we include these things on record."

Drew's mom shakes her head and makes a quiet noise that Bianca figures means _whatever_. It almost makes her want to laugh, the aggravated, "fuck off" sass in Mrs. Torres's voice that isn't directed at her, but she bites back the absurd idea.

"So, for the record, Miss DeSousa," the lawyer continues. "Drew Torres was with you the night Anson West attacked you?"

Bianca nods, then remembers she has to say it. "Yes. He was there. He…"

_Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. _

"Anson pulled me into this alley. He was trying to rape me." Bianca says. She tries hard not to make her voice shake and isn't sure if it's working, because she can barely hear anything over the blood rushing in her ears. "Drew found me & fought him off. Hit him with a brick, over the head."

"Who made contact first after the incident, you or Mr. Bell?"

"Vince. He found me and Drew. I had a bracelet…Drew gave it to me. It had my name on it. It fell off that night, when Anson attacked me. That's how he found us. Then he threatened us if we didn't do what he said."

"And what did Mr. Bell tell you and Mr. Torres to do for him?"

Bianca knows Mrs. Torres already heard this when Drew gave his statement, but she watches the woman's jaw clench and her eyes look away when Bianca says, "He told Drew he needed to kill someone. Another gang member. Vince told him that if Drew killed the guy, he wouldn't hurt us."

"And what happened next?"

"Drew told the police what happened. I was scared they'd hurt him, so I went to Vince and tried to make a deal with him. So he wouldn't hurt Drew. Vince told me the only way he'd leave Drew alone was if I worked for him."

"And what did Mr. Bell mean, work for him?"

"Sell drugs. Not just to people he worked with but at my school. He wanted me to ask around, see if any of the students were interested in buying."

"And all this time, you were under the impression that Mr. Bell would directly harm you or Mr. Torres if you resisted?"

"Yes."

"You also said in your original statement that Mr. Bell made several violent assaults on you. Can you describe those assaults for the record?"

Bianca stares at him.

"Just for the record, Miss DeSousa."

She rolls up the sleeve of her sweater, shows him the bruise on her wrist that is just now starting to fade to a sinister yellowish tone.

"He sprained my wrist when he grabbed me too hard. And he hit me in the face, too. On my cheek. It left a bruise. I covered it with make-up, so no one would ask about it."

_Who would have_, a voice in her head says bitterly. _Like anyone would care what was going on with Boiler Room Bianca, Degrassi's resident skank._

"He choked me once. Put his hands around my throat. And then...one time he got mad at me, and he pushed me down and kicked me in the stomach. He didn't break anything. I don't think he did, anyway. I never saw a doctor. But I'm pretty sure he didn't."

"Mr. Bell claims in his statement that the two of you were seeing one another during the times these assaults occurred."

She shakes her head, so hard that some of the curls come loose from the bun she tied at the nape of her neck. "That was part of the deal. And it wasn't dating. He said…" Her tongue feels too heavy in her mouth. "He told me if I did him some favors, he would leave Drew alone."

"Sexual favors." The lawyer's tone is without emotion. "And you said yes?"

Bianca stares at her hands. "Yes," she says, so quietly she wonders if the tape can even hear.

"And did working for Mr. Bell entail anything else? Other than selling marijuana?"

Bianca's hands are shaking too badly to hide. She can feel sweat running down her back, pooling at the base of her spine. For a moment, she watches the room get swimmy, the lights turning everything into a haze.

"Ms. DeSousa." The voice sounds far away. "Ms. DeSousa. Do we need to take a break?"

"No," she says. She grips the edges of the chair, trying to anchor herself. "I don't."

He looks at her with practiced sympathy, but continues. "Then could you please tell us, for the record, if Mr. Bell had you do any other jobs for him other than selling marijuana."

_Say it. Just say it. Once, and that's it. Once, and you never have to say it again. Just get it out there. _

She focuses on a dark whorl on the sleek, perfect wood and doesn't look up.

"He offered me," she says. There's a timbre in her voice she can't even try to control. In another second she's going to throw up, so she continues instead. "To some of his friends. A few times. For their…for whatever he needed from them."

She doesn't think she's imagining the pause in the room, the way everything just freezes for a second.

"So you're saying," the lawyer says, "Mr. Bell prostituted you to his associates in exchange for their services."

Bianca can't make the answer come out this time. She just nods again, still staring at that whorl in the wood.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Mrs. Torres still watching her. Her posture remains stiff, but her normally stern expression has slipped for a moment, shadowed with the tiniest bit of something that looks like horror.

The lawyer waits another moment, letting Bianca compose herself. She takes a few shallow breaths and slips her hands under her thighs, willing them to stop trembling.

"Just a few more questions. As an insider to his criminal activities, did Mr. Bell ever indicate to you in any way that he was planning on attacking the Degrassi Community High School prom on June 3rd, 2012?"

"No."

"Did Mr. Bell give you any information regarding any other such attacks he may have previously committed?"

"No."

"Did Mr. Bell tell you anything in regards to the murders of Mario Olah or Terron Murphy, two open homicide cases in which he was named a suspect?"

Bianca's head snaps up. "No," she remembers to add. She isn't sure why she sounds so stunned.

"One final statement, Miss DeSousa," the lawyer says. "You are swearing here today, under oath, that at any given moment during your association with Mr. Bell, you felt as if you or Mr. Torres would come under extreme bodily harm, possibly deadly, if you refused to comply with his orders?"

She doesn't know why he needs to ask her this same question again, but looks him in the eye this time when she answers.

"Yeah. I knew if I left, he'd hurt us both. Maybe kill us. I don't know. But I knew I couldn't just walk away from him or any of the shit he was making me do."

She didn't mean to swear, but no one seems to notice. The lawyer clicks the tape recorder off.

"Is that all?" Mrs. Torres says.

He nods. "I think we have everything we need," he says. "Unless Miss DeSousa has anything else she wants to add."

Both of them turn to Bianca.

"No," she says, sounding dazed. "I'm done."

**XII.**

She follows Drew's mother out of the office. Both of their heels click on the marble floor; one set of steps sound full of purpose, the other full of something trying to sound like it. Bianca slides into the backseat behind the driver's side, hunching into herself on the cold leather.

"Are you hungry?"

Bianca peers at the rearview. The woman's eyes are on her. "What?"

"Are you hungry? There's a McDonalds at the strip mall across the street. Do you want anything?"

"Oh." She didn't eat breakfast, but her stomach rebels when she even thinks of eating. "No. Thank you."

Mrs. Torres doesn't respond. Just backs out of the parking lot and heads towards the highway ramp in silence.

She knows everything now. Every dirty truth and secret.

Bianca's head is throbbing. She puts her hand to her temples, trying to soothe the ache, but she just feels dizzy. Colors explode behind her eyelids, and her stomach still turns even though she hasn't had anything to eat all day.

_Not everything_, she reminds herself. Drew never did back down from his story about what really happened to Anson.

Still. Everything else. Mrs. Torres knows. She can see right through Bianca. She always has.

She has everything together, Drew's mom. She never needs to put on the whole crappy "Good Girl" routine; she just knows how to act all the time. Never hesitates. Never questions herself. She's always sure of everything.

And now his mom knows all the little messy details that show her who Bianca really is. And if Mrs. Torres didn't hate her before…

_Anything you say can and will be used against you._

**XIII.**

It's going to get stormy outside; somber-colored clouds that look like they're supposed to be important roll over the house as thunder quakes in the distance, but for some reason the sun is still high and hot, and the heavy humidity smothers Bianca when she opens the car door.

Mrs. Torres into the house without saying a word to her. Bianca nearly stumbles getting out of the SUV, her legs a quivering mess and her head still reeling. The adrenaline from the deposition has worn off, and now all the excess energy and nerves just course through her blood like caffeine. Her hands are still shaking, her limbs like long strands of spaghetti as she staggers into the house and up to the guest room.

Bianca reaches behind herself, unzips her dress. Lets it slip into a black puddle at her feet, and steps out of her underwear. She stands naked in front of the storm-streaked window, staring out at the bullet-colored sky.

That's all she is here. Just a guest in someone else's house. An unwelcome one, too. Uninvited, undesirable, unwanted by everyone, save the one person she knows doesn't even belong to her.

**XIV.**

"Hey," Drew asks, when she makes her way downstairs a few hours later. He's standing half in, half-out of the bonus room closet, surrounded by boxes and half-broken things.

"Hey," she replies. She had to shower again after getting back from the lawyer's, and made the water colder until the last of the fatigue and worry drain out of her. She padded around the bedroom naked in the darkness, the cold air of the A/C chilling her damp body and the storm outside darkening the sky into shifting, blotchy shadows. She pulled on the grey sweats Drew let her borrow; they drowned her when she slipped the flannel over her icy skin, but after huddling on the bed for a while in his clothes, she finally stopped shivering.

"Did the lawyer thing go okay?"

"Yeah. What are you doing?"

"What did he ask you?"

She stares at the piles he's made around him. "What are you doing?" she repeats.

Drew rolls his eyes. "My mom made me clean out the closet. Everything we don't use is going to Goodwill. Wanna help?"

"What are we looking for?"

"Pretty much anything that isn't a video game," he laughs. "Or one of my old sports trophies."

"You're so full of it," she smirks. She starts reaching into the shelves, pulling out stacks of VHSs without boxes, cracked CD cases (she makes fun of him for the Cyndi Lauper one, which he insists belongs to his mother) and old boom boxes, a few dumbbells and weighted jump ropes, and some glossy paperback books with spines that have never been cracked.

He reaches in and pulls out a stack of board games. Sorry!, Mousetrap, Guess Who, Junior Monopoly.

"Stick these somewhere," he says, handing the stack to her. "Mom'll probably want to donate them. Hey, I remember this."

He pulls out another one, the box for Candy Land.

"Adam played this a lot," Drew says. "When we were kids."

"Just Adam?" Bianca teases.

"It's one of those things I'll use against him someday," Drew says. He shakes the game box and arches an eyebrow at her. "You wanna play?"

She laughs. "You serious?"

"Ahh, come on." He grins. "It'll be stupid and funny. One game?"

"As long as you bring some irony," she says.

"I don't know what that means, but is that a yes?"

"This is so lame." She laughs. "Sure."

They clear a place on the floor and sit down, giggling a little as they set up the colorful snake of the game board and pick their smiling plastic gingerbread, placing the markers on the first square. Bianca doesn't remember ever playing Candy Land as a kid, but Drew laughs and says she doesn't need to know anything.

"This game's the easiest thing ever," Drew says. "No math, no fake money to count, no weird rules. Just draw the card and move."

"So, what, just pick a card and that's it?"

He nods. "And if you get a cartoon character card, you need to move back to where that character is. When Adam and I were kids, we'd always get so pissed off when one of us got the card with the green guy."

"So…" she asks, "how do you win?"

"You get to the castle." He shuffles the deck in his hands. "You just get the right cards."

"You don't need to do anything?"

"No! That's the point. A three-year-old could play this game." He laughs. "Okay, if you're having a hard time keeping up with _Candy Land…"_

She traces the pattern of the trail with her finger.

"Not the best game to teach kids," she muses.

He looks up at her. "Why?"

"It's not fair," she says. "They basically can't win. It's all in the cards. They've got no chance if someone else has all the right ones."

She turns the game piece over in her hand. "So really, they're losing before they even start. Because they picked the card with that fucking green gremlin-thing or whatever, and they're screwed. Because now they're back to the start. Like nothing changed."

Drew stops shuffling the cards and stares at her. "It's just a game, Bee."

"Yeah," she says. She takes her red plastic gingerbread man and places it next to Drew's blue one at the starting line. "Your move."

She takes the first card, a yellow square, and hops her little piece forward.

"Kinda sucks that the losers are already fucked," she says. "Nobody's really making choice; just going along with it. There's always someone else to blame." She sighs. "It's all in the cards."

Drew blinks. "Do you not want to play or something?"

"Why haven't you broken up with Katie yet?" The words come out in a rush.

His eyebrows shoot up. "What?"

She takes her little game piece off the board and turns it over in her hands.

"You haven't broken up with her yet," she says. "And you still want to be with me."

She looks up at him. "You belong to her."

"I don't," Drew argues.

"Then why don't you break up with her and be with me?"

Drew sighs. "Because…"

"Because why?" she demands.

"Because…" his voice trails off. "Look, Katie's been away at soccer camp all summer, and she's already so paranoid about us…"

"Looks like she was right," she says.

"Which was why I didn't want to break it off to her on the phone," he says. "I wanted to do it face to face, because she deserved that much. She deserved to have an honest conversation."

Bianca rolls her eyes. "So after spending the entire summer with me, you were going to really sit down with her and have an HONEST conversation? About us? About everything we've been doing since…"

She looks away, shaking her head. "You should have broken up with her right away."

"I know," Drew says earnestly. "And I feel horrible about it."

"No you don't," she says. Her voice is quiet, but it cuts through the room like that stupid A/C, making everything around them suddenly turn cold. "Because if you did, you would have done it right after that first time. Right after prom." She looks him in the eye. "You would have called her and told her the truth."

"I wasn't sure how things were going to work out between us!" Drew argues.

"So you were just gonna keep sleeping with me until you decided if I was worth keeping around?"

"No, that's not it at all!"

"You didn't break up with her because you wanted a reason to leave," she says. She throws the game piece down and turns away. "You wanted ME to tell you to leave your girlfriend. So you never had to make the hard choice. So you just kept sleeping with me and hoping I'd tell you what to do, because then you didn't have to get your hands dirty! And it wouldn't be _your_ fault that you guys broke up!"

"I know I screwed up!" Drew says. He scrambles to his feet, kicking over the game board in the process. The colorful stack of cards flutters into a messy pile, the little plastic pieces upended. "I just didn't want to hurt her feelings."

"Little late for that," Bianca says.

"I know! I didn't want this to happen!"

He takes a step closer and reaches out to grab her arm.

"I just wanted to be with you!" he says. "I love you!"

She pulls her arm away. "When it's convenient."

She turns her back on his hurt face. "Like when your other relationships fall apart and you want someone to crawl back to. Someone who will always take you back."

"That's not true," he says, his voice stony.

"Really?" she says. "Because that's what it feels like."

She turns her back on him and stands with her arms crossed over her chest, hugging herself together.

"If you loved me," she says quietly, "you would have already broken up with Katie."

She turns and walks away. Drew is silent and doesn't try to follow her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Sorry this took so long. Life has been chaos for the past three or four weeks. On the plus side, I did graduate from college in the middle of all that. With honors. So yay.  
**

**Offering congratulations to my good friend musiksnob, who gave birth to a healthy baby girl a few weeks ago. So happy to hear her family is doing well =)**

**Twitter: AlbatrossTam14 (protected tweets)**

**I don't own Degrassi.**

**I.**

_He isn't sure where the screams are coming from, but it sounds like everywhere. There are flashing lights in the distance, and he starts running towards them. If he can just get to the lights…that has to be safe, that has to be a way out. He can run, he just needs to keep trying to get away, run faster, faster…_

_Someone grabs him from behind and hurtles him to the ground; he slams into the concrete and it jolts through his entire body. He can't breathe, and there's something holding him on the ground, freezing him in place._

_The dark figure bends over him with yellow teeth and snarling jaws ready to rip him apart. It isn't human, but when it takes the gun and presses it to Drew's temple, he knows the voice:_

"_You have no idea what you got yourself into, Squeaky Clean"_

It takes Drew a moment to realize he's on the floor. His comforter is tangled around his legs, and his arms are tossed up to guard his face. He tries to breathe, but the wind is knocked out of him. When he can finally get some air, he blinks away the nightmare and realizes he's not in the alleyway.

His back hurts from where he fell on it, and his side aches – a souvenir from the beating he took. It still hurts from time to time, even though he's completely healed, but now his fingers graze the spot he landed on.

In the nights immediately after his attack at The Dot, Drew would more often than not bolt awake from nightmares and fall out of bed on his broken ribs. As much as it hurt, the pain was a relief – it snapped him out of the nightmares.

Still, much as he welcomed the pain, it never was enough to not remember. He still tasted the blood in his mouth, the way he had just before he'd blacked out in the slush. There were times he still couldn't breathe; sometimes he woke up choking and gagging. Sometimes he'd wake up with blood on his hands after digging his nails into the skin on his palms. Sometimes he'd wake up swearing a gun went off, hearing the aftershock ringing in his ears.

He remembers when the pain of falling out of bed used to be something he wanted, something he wished for and welcomed.

As fucked up as that was, Drew had looked forward to the jolt. Just like he looked forward to the pound of his knuckles against bone in the cage. It was freeing, in its own way. The pain was an outlet. The pain refocused him. It was something he could control.

Getting out of bed, he wraps his knuckles with some leftover tape – they're just starting to heal from the fighting – and heads towards the bonus room, where the punching bag hangs from the ceiling like it's been waiting this whole time for him to come back. His fists are a little tender from not keeping a steady workout regimen, but he remembers the movements well enough to feel like he's never been away.

He begins at a steady pace that matches the kickdrum of his heart, beating in his ears. A summer storm is rolling in over the cityscape this early Sunday morning. Dark clouds pretending to be important rumble while light dances across the smoky sky. Outside the bonus room windows, the streets shimmer with the glow of warm rain when the darkness flashes. His eyes dart around the room, taking in every hidden corner, every shadowy shape.

When they were kids, Drew hated thunder. If it was storming, he'd wrap his head in a blanket to try and block out the noise. He always thought that thunder would break the sky in half, and the world would collapse in on itself. Then he got older and stopped being such a wuss, and told himself whenever a particularly loud clap of thunder echoed through his bedroom in the middle of the night that it was just a fucking noise, it couldn't hurt him, and stop being suck an idiot, already. But the bad storms they're all dealing with now are much bigger and stronger than something he can hide from under the sheets, and Drew's not much better at telling himself they don't scare him than he was when the storms were actually something he could convince himself he wasn't afraid of.

Heavy grey rain comes down on the roof of the house in a steady pattern. It drowns out the sound of his fist hitting the bag in angry cadence. The war drumbeat of the storm blocks out all other sound except his heart thudding in his ears. He still remembers cages and desperation, though, and there's a sour taste in his mouth that washes over the iron tang of terror he woke up with.

He wonders what kind of dreams Bianca has. She said she never dreamed about Anson or any of it at all, but before it all went to Hell he'd heard her cry out enough times in her sleep and struggle when he tried to wake her up to know she's lying to him.

He throws another punch. He needs to figure out how to get them out of his own head before he can figure out how to banish them from someone else's. One nightmare at a time.

His stomach does a slow barrel role as he leans against the bag, gasping hard and heavy. He tries to take a deep breath and it catches at the back of his throat.

Great. Of course his brain is only wired to two tracks these days – either the nightmare he just escaped from or the real world that makes him almost miss the bad dreams.

He smacks the bag. Fucking _everything_.

The chains rattle above his head. He stops and strips out of his t-shirt, then settles back into the rhythm of feints and dodges, a fluid attack pattern of strikes. Even with the A/C clanking, it's a warm, muggy morning, and after going a few rounds with the punching bag his back and chest are clammy with sweat that traces patterns across his shoulder blades and down his back, pooling at the base of his spine. Some of it trickles down his face and catches in his eyes, stinging as be blinks it away without breaking his rhythm.

The longer he keeps it up, the more the aftershock of the nightmare begins to fade away. The steady pound of the punches gives him something to focus on, makes him forget everything else except for the smell of his own sweat.

Drew closes his eyes and takes a particularly fierce jab at the bag. When he opens his eyes, he thinks he can feel someone else's on him, and it makes him freeze, his heart hammering so loudly he's sure anyone can hear it. His ears are tuned to every crick and groan of the house, every little noise made in the strange timelessness of dark night. But there's no one there, of course, because it's four freaking AM and everyone else is fast asleep.

He tries to pick up the same fluid movement of nonstop jabs, and as he finds his particular beat he closes his eyes again. He takes a deep breath and feels a calm wash over him, almost like he's being held under water. He continues his stream of punches and imagines that feeling taking him completely, allowing him to fall asleep. To fall away from a world of blacks and reds and shadows, and into a world of soft light and clean sheets and a warm, smooth body pressed against his own.

He'd open his eyes, and see hazel staring into them.

Katie's eyes, focused and bright blue, flash across his mind.

Here's the thing: he's not _that_ dense. He _knows_ he fucked it up royally with Katie. Like, way beyond the scope of his usual fuck-ups. And it hurts, because he cares about her, and she got pulled into something just like he did, something she had no control over, and it ended up screwing her over because…because whatever it is with him and Bee, whether it's their shared hells or their secrets or the fact that they were pretty fucking epic together before the world exploded, he hasn't been able to get it out from under his skin. It's sunk way in there, in his blood and under his bones.

He knows they were different people, him and Katie, but there's no doubt she saved him, and he was always happy with her. She deserves more than what she got from him. A common theme with the girls he's been with, he notes, though he could say that about Katie more than any other girl he was ever with.

It's different, he knows, than it was with Alli. This time, he wasn't just following his dick. What's been going on between him and Bee since prom night…it's way more than just wanting her hand, or her mouth. It isn't even_ about_ the sex. Because with Bianca, it's always been more, and he didn't really understand that until their first time together, when they were both still dazed and wounded and walking around feeling like their guts were torn open and their hearts ripped out.

He still can't get Bianca's words out of his head from the other night. _When it's convenient. _They were so angry. Right after he'd just gone all Dr. Phil and bore his fucking soul or whatever, and she threw it right back in his face. Like it didn't fucking matter that he just said "I love you".

He's never told any girl he loved them before. He's told a lot of girls what they wanted to hear, and he's told a few girls what he wanted them to know. He'd told Katie that he cared about her, that he was grateful for her, that she meant so much to him…and she was the closest he'd ever come to actually saying it.

Why the hell can't she cut him some slack? She saw what he did for her with Anson. She knows what he did for her on prom night. What he's still doing for her now. She has to know that he doesn't just _do_ this. That it was never like this with Alli, or Katie, or anyone. She's seen what he's done for her, and why can't she cut him a break?

He attacks the bag with another series of punches and tries to figure out why both of them are keeping this a secret. Or how he can feel like scum for what he's doing to Katie, but at the same time can't help that he doesn't care more about how he's the scum what he's doing to Katie. He's fucking over a person who never stopped caring about him, never stopped trying to reach him, and never gave up on him when he was at his worst.

Then again, he could say the same for Bianca.

Fuck.

He knows he has to end things with Katie. Because what he's doing…he can't be doing this to her. He really can't, shouldn't. He cares about her too much to keep treating her like this.

But as bad a taste that leaves in his mouth, he's not ready. And if he dumped her now, she would know. She would know everything without him having to tell her anything. He can't find a way to do the right thing and stop fucking her over without…well, fucking her over. And she doesn't deserve that, either, any more than she deserved to be cheated on.

He's not ready. To try and go back to before, whichever era of Before that actually means, and try to put all three of them – him, Bee, and Katie – back into the right places where they're supposed to belong. Not ready to carry the weight of ruining everything good he ever had with a girl who broke through to him, who pulled him out of a downward spiral and helped glue his pieces back together, tried to soothe the aches and relieve the burdens, who was the haven he needed when all he wanted was peace.

And that part of him doesn't want to open his mouth, because usually that means he'll fuck it all up.

There are things he thinks about as the storm rattles ahead and there are unknown murmurs from the shadows. The rhythm of his punches empties his mind and allows the exhaustion of sleepless nights to wash over him. It's like falling asleep under a hot midday sun, feeling dizzy and sun-tired and like you're floating. Wind outside howls in his ears like the roar of a distant shore, and he continues his measured assault on the bag continues as shadows strip across the room, emptying the corners of his mind of all the fears that plague his nights.

Maybe this, right here, is where they're all _supposed to _belong. Like there no happy ending to any of it.

**II.**

_Her back is thrown against the wall; the taste of blood is in her mouth. An arm comes across her throat, cutting her off mid-scream; another comes up, and rough, clawed hands tear her clothes off. The smell of blood is everywhere, along with smoke. Her skin burns where he grabs her, like he's searing it off. _

_It doesn't matter how hard she tries uselessly to fight him off. There's no one else around; no one to hear her struggle, hear her yell whenever she tries to get free of his grip. He slams her against the wall again, and she can feel a warm trickle of blood at the back of her head; her vision goes dark and fuzzy, even as she tries to keep him off of her. _

_His face is shadowed, but she can see his eyes burning in the blackness. They're red. But then he blinks, and they turn black. Like a demon. He slams her against the wall one more time, pinning her arms at her sides, and she opens her mouth for one last scream that echoed through her ears, roars through the alley. It's all she can do, until she feels him rip her apart inside._

There is still heat against her skin when she jerks awake. Her shirt is soaked with sweat and her hair is clinging to her back and neck, swirled around her face like it had tried to choke her in a struggle. For a second, all she can hear is her heart roaring in her ears, echoes of her own screams, and her teeth chattering. The A/C roars into the little room. It chills her skin and makes her shiver under the damp covers. The light pouring through the curtains is greyish purple in the pre-dawn sky, the color of an old bruise.

It takes her a minute to catch her breath, but eventually the noise faded and the only sound she can hear is the sound of her too-loud gasps for air. The blanket is tangled around her legs, and she nearly falls in a heap when she tries to climb out of the bed.

She's tangled up in sheets that feel too smooth to sleep in, and the clock on the bedside reads 4:09. She knows she's not going to get any more sleep. Which of course is just perfect, since Drew's mother said at dinner that she was going to take Bianca in to have a meeting with the lawyer in the morning, and that their appointment was at 9 AM so she needed to be dressed and ready to go even earlier than that.

Perfect. Now on the one morning that she needs to be completely focused and charming and totally win Mrs. Torres on her side for good – since the woman kind of has Bianca's life in her hands at this point – she's going to be an exhausted, nightmare-twisted wreck.

Oh well. As if anything Bianca said from now on could redeem her in the eyes of Mrs. Torres. Not after that deposition, after what she heard about everything Bianca did.

Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she climbs out of bed and tiptoes out of her cold little room. She holds her breath as she passes the closed door to Mrs. Torres's bedroom, hoping to God the woman doesn't wake up and catch Bianca tiptoeing around. The last thing she needs is to be accused of sneaking out of the house – or worse, sneaking into Drew's bed. Then she can kiss the lawyer and this living arrangement and everything else goodbye. And say hello to real bars on windows.

Nights like this make her miss him, more than she admits. Before their fight, she spent most nights in the guest room, but sometimes – neither of them focused on a routine – she would go to him, and they'd end up curled around each other in the darkness without preamble or explanation. But it doesn't matter now.

She lets out the faintest sigh of relief when there isn't any noise behind the door, and pads into the kitchen in bare feet.

Since she still isn't getting the hang of sleeping, most nights she finds herself pacing the floors just like she is now. So she wanders and stares out the windows at the park by the moonlight. The spotless tile floor is freezing cold, and the stainless steel appliances seem to glare at her with their smooth, polished perfection, as if they're sizing her up. Like the stove and oven and dishwasher are all telling Bianca what she already knows: _you don't belong here._

She tries to fight the urge to run.

Occasionally she stops to look out the windows. They don't have bars on them, and the doors are locked from the inside instead of out.

She's not a prisoner here; she can leave any time she wants. And now that she and Drew really aren't on speaking terms since their fight after her deposition, she doesn't think there's much of a point in staying here.

But whenever she passes that alarm by the door, she gets other ideas. The red light blinks at her, like it's daring her to _try_.

It's around seven in the morning, while she's pressed up against the icy glass of the back patio door and staring out at the dark street barely lit by the glow of a single lamp, when she remembers this jumpy feeling, this sluggish quicksilver of restlessness running through her. It's not so different from when she was with Vince.

It's not just that she can't run. She has nowhere else to go.

The alarm blinks at her.

**III.**

One night not long after Drew got out of the hospital after getting jumped by Vince's thugs, before the fighting and the worst of the nightmares and prom, before they knew how bad the _hell_ of it all could get, Adam woke up to his brother crying in his sleep. He tiptoed down the hall and saw Drew tossing and turning, crammed into a small pile in a mess of tangled bed sheets, sheened with sweat and making this whimpering, tiny noise that twisted Adam's stomach to hear.

It wasn't the loudest or most intense bad dream of Drew's he'd woken up to, but it was the one that scared Adam the most. Because this hell-damaged and broken thing, this pathetic mess, was like the world turned inside-out, and instead of giving him some great ammo for future ribbing and pissing his brother off, it made Adam feel sick to see him like this.

So when Adam wakes up around seven to a sound he never hoped to hear again – the dull strike of Drew attacking the punching bag like he has someone to punish – it makes him feel that same way again. His brother had left the bag alone since he'd starting dating Katie and taken up tae kwon do, and Adam was grateful for it; he didn't have to wake up like this at the crack of dawn knowing his brother had spent another sleepless night fighting off nightmare terrors and pretending to believe he didn't have any.

He's can't say he isn't completely surprised – Adam knows he's not the only one who's been having bad dreams since prom, though the three of them don't talk about it – but the angry grunts and beats from the bonus room are too familiar, too raw. And even though Drew swears up and down he's doing the best out of all three of them – he wasn't shot or going to trial, which is the justification his brother gives when he swears he's all right – the noise that woke Adam up says otherwise.

By the time Adam makes it to breakfast, his brother is pale and hollow-eyed, looking like he had a hell of a night. Drew is stirring a bowl of Cocoa Puffs that have gone soggy and turned to a brown mush in the bowl. He isn't really eating it, just poking at it, his head propped up on one hand.

Adam wonders how long Drew was attacking that punching bag before he woke up, then thinks he doesn't really want to know.

"Whoa. You look like hell. Did you stay up all night?"

Drew doesn't say anything. He keeps staring at the bowl of Coco Puffs, his head resting on his arms. He looks exhausted, the way Adam hasn't seen since his cagefighting days. He half-expects to see Drew's knees jittering under the table, or see his eyes flickering around the room, like they did back then – even in their own kitchen, he was always on alert, ready to run and fight at the slightest unexpected brush or sound. Instead, though, he just looks drained.

The silence is too heavy and exhausted for Adam to stand, and it makes him feel like he's dragging himself along the kitchen floor. He wishes they could all just snap out of it, already, even though it's not that easy. But he hates that everything feels this way. Just when it seemed as if they were all finding something to distract themselves from it all – Drew trying to take care of him, Adam burying himself in video games and physical therapy and making summer plans with Eli and Dave, and Bianca doing whatever his mom asks and trying not to look as lost as she did – none of them have really been dealing. It was only a matter of time before things started going south, Adam figures.

There's a sour taste in his mouth. It went south, all right. Between the three of them, him with the sling and Bianca with her timid silences and now Drew looking like shit, this place is starting to feel more like a fucking refugee camp than Adam likes.

Adam goes over to the pantry and grabs his box of blueberry Poptarts. "Any particular reason you were going all _Million Dollar Baby_ this morning?" He keeps his voice even, trying not to raise any alarms. Then thinks that probably wasn't the best analogy since that movie was about a girl.

He doesn't hear Drew grunt a reply or even shift behind him. Adam glances back and sees him still slumped over his untouched cereal.

Adam fights back another response and turns to his food. He knows it's pointless trying to get anywhere with Drew. Any time he tries to talk to his brother, it always leads to the same place – a dead end. Drew never outright argues with him, but instead finds all sorts of interesting ways to deflect or change the subject, and lately that skill has been honed to an art form that made every other attempt previously just a practice round. For a guy who thinks the Cold War took place in Antarctica, he's a pro at avoiding arguments.

Adam breaks his Poptart into four pieces. Against his better instincts, he asks, "Was it another nightmare?"

Drew pushes away from the table, knocking over his chair. As it clatters on the hardwood, he turns and heads downstairs. Adam hears the basement door slam, and closes his eyes at the loud bang.

So much for talking.

**IV.**

"I think it's time for me to move back home," Bianca says. It's just her and Adam at the house, with homemade quesadillas and _Batman Begins_ on cable. Though they've both seen it a million times and quote their favorite passages back to the screen.

"You want to get away from us that badly?" Adam jokes.

She punches his good shoulder. "Yeah, that's it."

Drew's out again, this time shooting hoops with Dave at the park. She knows he's just avoiding her – all of a sudden, the past few days have been filled with basketball with Dave, or lifting weights with K.C. at the gym, or football training with Owen. She's been giving him the cold shoulder since their fight

_(break-up?) _

_(Were they even together enough to call it a break-up?) _

and he hasn't tried to reach out to her. She knows it's because he still doesn't know what to do; because he's waiting for her to break first and tell him what to do instead of figuring it out for himself.

Probably the latter, given that he hasn't broken it off with Katie yet.

So until he does that she knows it's in everyone's best interest to stay far away from him. Or at least, as far away from him as this house will allow.

Which, big as it seemed to her at first, now seems to be getting smaller and smaller.

As the days pass and Drew's silences get longer, Adam gives aside reasons to Bianca for why she should stick around.

"Mom's homemade Pico-de-Gallo," he whispers as they dust the family room. Mrs. Torres never seems to run out of things to tell them to do. But Bianca never says no, partly because she's afraid to say that to Drew's mom and partly because she needs something to do to occupy her time, other than pace the house in the middle of her sleepless nights.

"Never tried it."

"One more reason to stick around," Adam says.

One day, when they're having a Mario Kart tournament on their old GameCube, he turns to her and says, "I need someone to play video games with who isn't an obnoxious bragger."

"Just punch him if he gets annoying," Bianca says.

As they unload the dishwasher, he says "you know how to cook something besides grilled cheese."

She has to smile at that. "Just watch the cooking channel."

When Bianca drives Adam to physical therapy one afternoon, he says, "I need someone else who understands the plot of _The Usual Suspects."_

"Drew likes that movie."

Adam snorts. "He likes the action-y stuff. That doesn't mean he understands what's going on."

One day they're helping his mom with the grocery shopping. While she searches the produce section, Adam grabs a pack of Oreo Cakesters off the shelf and tells her, "TiVo. Horror movie marathons. And we're walking distance from Eco Yogurt and Pizza Perfect. Which is, like, all you ever need."

She can't figure out why Adam wants her here, why he's trying so hard. Even though their turnaround spin on the dance floor at prom – before everything went to hell – gave them some kind of patch job of forgiveness, it doesn't exactly get rid of the fact that they have a weird history. But the more Adam protests against her leaving and the longer Drew's silences get, she wonders if Small Fry knows something about what went on between the two of them.

If he does, he doesn't let on. Just keeps asking her with reasons like, "we have a hot tub" and "Dead Hand on vinyl" and "you'd miss out on all the fun of calling me Gimpy."

Today is one of those mornings she could imagine herself staying. Drew's still asleep and his parents are at work, so it's just her and Adam making pancakes from a boxed mix. It's a lazy Wednesday almost-afternoon and the sky is cloudless and bright. If she didn't see Adam awkwardly stirring the batter with his one good arm with the sling strapped across his front, it would feel like summer for the first time.

"Chocolate chip pancakes," he says, then nearly tips the bowl over the countertop with a clumsy, one-handed stir. "Shit."

"We're not making an entire batch of chocolate chip," she says, taking the bowl and mixer from him and smoothing out the lumps in the yellow batter. "And you're running out of ideas."

"If you stay, I'll shut up," Adam says. He sticks one finger towards the mix.

"Impossible," she says, slapping his hand away. She takes a few spoonfuls of it and puts it in a small bowl, then Adam sprinkles chocolate chips into it. He pours it onto the skillet, and Bianca realizes that she hasn't eaten breakfast alone the entire time she's been here. It's strange, especially since she doesn't remember the last time Juliana or anyone else sat down with her to eat breakfast, or any meal for that matter. Even in the caf, since no one ever sat with her since Fitz got shipped off to Jesus Juvie.

"You're really serious about this whole moving out thing, aren't you?" he asks.

She shrugs. "Why not?"

"What's wrong with being here?"

"I have my own place," she says.

"Yeah," Adam replies, "but why would you go back there? I thought things were pretty good here."

"They are," she says.

"Then what's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter," she insists. "I just think, maybe…"

She flaps her hand, letting the answer dangle there.

Which, of course, Adam doesn't just let go. "Maybe what?"

She fiddles with the loose fringes on the couch pillow. "Maybe it's just time," she finishes lamely.

"Is it about the lawyer stuff?" Adam asks. He just doesn't know when to quit.

She whirls around. "Could you just leave it?"

He backs down a little at her tone. "Okay," he says. "Okay, sorry. I just wanted to know if you were okay."

"Apart from the possible jail time, just peachy," she snaps.

"You'll be okay," Adam tells her.

"And you know this because…"

"Bianca," Adam says. He reaches over to her, then hesitates and draws his arm back just short of touching her shoulder. "Hey. It's gonna be okay. It'll work out."

She rolls her eyes. "So easy to say that if you're not the one facing prison."

She thinks back to the fight she had with Drew, about telling him that he was waiting for someone else to tell him how to fix his own problem. He and his brother were just alike. Always telling her everything would go right, that things would be okay, even when everything was most definitely _not._ Well, both of them could be all cheery and hopeful. Neither of them was looking down the barrel of the future she was facing.

"It's easy for you and Drew, because things always have been," she tells him. "Things don't just get worked out, though. Other people work them out for you and you _think_ they work themselves out."

"Okay, one, it's never been easy," Adam says. "And two, my parents are paying for your lawyers because they want to help you work it out. You're not doing this alone anymore. And three, you _won't_ go to jail."

She rounds on him again, wanting him to just _shut up_ with the Mr. Rogers, oh-it's-a-beautiful-day-in-the-magical-neighborhood act, when she sees him staring at her with those eyes she remembers. Those big wide eyes with that idiotic puppy dog earnestness she melted under. Just like he looked at her that day in the hallway, completely sincere and serious, _"I could be your type"._ His eyes are so honest, wanting her to believe this. She doesn't know what to do with that look. It reminds her, too much, of that day in the hallway…pushing him away, playfully at first, then with nothing but shock and disgust, and anger. At him for making her feel stupid, and her for believing in him in the first place.

And just like that, she deflates.

"What," she says, trying to smile and sounding too tired to. "You have an ace up your sleeve or something?"

He grins at her with Those Damn Eyes. "Don't need one."

She can almost believe him, with a look like that. She wonders who taught him the confidence, the self-assurance, or how he can believe so firmly.

Instead, looks into Those Eyes again, and remembers how it was that day in the hallway. Only this time, there's a different ending, one where she lets herself believe exactly what he says, because he looks at her like he understands how it all ends.

**V.**

Adam is supposed to be playing _Mass Effect 3_, but keeps shooting his brother looks out of the corner of his eye. Drew attacks the punching bag again and Adam has to bite his tongue to keep himself from saying "hey, slow down Rocky" or "I didn't realize you were training for the WWE."

His brother barely talks to him anymore and Adam is getting sick of recognizing the sound of him pounding that bag every three AM for the past week. Drew's never been discrete or subtle – Adam bets he doesn't even know what those words mean – but this avoidance thing is getting ridiculous.

Finally he can't keep it in any longer.

"Who's winning?" he asks.

Drew whirls around, surprised. Adam notes the wild hair and can smell the sweat from here.

He can also see the storytelling scars. Stitches and old bruises, the tenseness of his shoulders, the exhausted eyes. All Spring Break's marks.

Adam rests the controller in his lap. "Something up?" He tries to be slow, be careful. He knows by now to use a slow approach with Drew. Anything direct means he'll be more likely to shut down the conversation altogether.

Drew grunts. His lying has gotten worse, Adam notes. Not that he was ever a great liar, because he's never been able to do anything but wear his heart on his sleeve. But at least when he lied, he meant to lie. Nowadays it's like he doesn't even bother with the effort it takes to make one up.

"What's going on with you, man?" Adam asks.

"Nothing's going on," Drew says, just for the sake of arguing.

"Right. You're just enjoying the insomnia and nightmares. Like you did before."

He watches Drew turn away from him.

"You're scaring me, dude," he says quietly.

Drew shoots him a look. "Just leave it."

His brother attacks the bag with renewed vigor, his back to Adam. He watches Drew for a moment longer, but Drew is bent on ignoring him, and nobody avoids a conversation like he does. The last thing Adam wants is to drive his brother away from him again. He's reminded, too much, of the spring days when Drew would turn on him for no reason; when their relationship was a battlefield at worst, a faulty land mine at best.

After sitting in unbearable silence, Adam eventually starts up the video game again. Out of the corner of his eyes, he watches Drew slip his phone out of his pocket, stare at the screen for a minute, and then slide it back in his pocket. Adam can tell he didn't find whatever it is he was looking for, and Adam could guess what it was – something from Katie. A text, a missed call, a tweet or Facerange update. Drew has been strangely nonverbal about her ever since she left for soccer camp a few days after prom, but Adam figures it had to do with the weirdness of Bianca now living with them. He would bet every video game he has that Drew hasn't told Katie about this new development.

Adam knows something is going on between Drew and Bianca, but neither of them will talk. He's pissed at his brother for cheating on another girl with Bee, though after prom he thinks he might get what Drew sees in her – besides her fantastic ass and legs for days.

Light bulb moment: maybe that's the key to finally getting through to him.

He corners her after dinner one night, when the two of them are on dishwasher-loading duty and Drew is out getting wings and watching the game at Little Miss Stakes with Owen and K.C..

"Something up lately?" he asks.

Bianca busies herself scraping the bloody bits of steak off a plate and into the disposer. It looks a little like blood-soaked hunks of flesh and Adam tries not to think of that grisly image.

"Like what," she says.

"What's with the Cold War between you guys?"

She snaps her head up and stares at him. He's touched on something, no doubt.

"Nothing is happening," she replies, and Adam hears the undercurrent charging her voice. Sounds like she's as bad a liar as Drew.

He watches as she scrapes the leftover mashed potatoes on her own plate down the chute with more vigor than necessary, exaggerating the scraping sound her metal fork leaves on the ceramic.

Unwilling to have her tune him out before he actually says what he wants to say, he asks, "Have you noticed anything weird with him?"

Bianca's shoulders tense. "How should I know?"

"Did you hear him the past few nights? On the punching bag?"

"I sleep upstairs," Bianca says flatly. She says it like it's a punishment, or a holding pen. Not a place she lives. "Right down the hall from Mommy. So, no, I can't hear anything happening two floors down."

"So have you noticed anything weird with him? At all?"

She rolls her eyes. "Do I look like Dr. Phil?"

Bianca busies herself rearranging the salad bowl among the dishes on the bottom rack. Clearly, she's going to give him a hard time with this. He realizes with an inward groan that it's like arguing with Drew; answering questions with questions, passive-aggressive little jabs meant to shut down the conversation until he either blurts out something in a pissy huff or just shuts down completely and ignores him.

At least he knows what he's dealing with.

"The last time he was on that thing," Adam says, trying a different approach, "he was having nightmares. Really horrible ones. Some nights he'd scream himself awake. Other times he'd yell out for those guys not to kill him. I tried waking him up once – he pinned me to the floor and almost bashed my face in before he snapped out of it."

Bianca freezes over the dishwasher, dirty plate in hand. She isn't looking at him, but he knows she's listening.

"After he got into the whole MMA stuff, he'd end up with these huge bruises all over him, every day. He'd never tell me where he got them. Then some dude almost choked him to death in a cage fight, and Katie brought him home one night covered in blood and barely standing."

He notices that Bianca tries not to flinch at the mention of Katie's name, and her fingers tighten around the glass she's holding. The brief, wounded look still crosses her eyes, though, and Adam knows he's hit something, something that he'd figured was true for a while. He may not know Bianca very well, but he knows Drew, and ever since he saw the way his brother looked at Bianca when she first stepped into the hotel at prom with that tentative smile, he knew. As many years as he's watched Drew chase his wandering dick through junior high and high school, Adam knows his brother has never smiled at a single girl that way in his entire life.

And even though Adam's been half out of his head on painkillers since being released from the hospital, he's definitely noticed the change in the air between them. There have been too many charged silences, too many times they tried too hard not to look at one another, too many significant glances that were made out to be something else.

Adam takes a step closer. Watching her try her hardest to pretend she's unruffled, he feels the pieces start to come together.

"He won't talk to me," he says quietly. "That's why I'm asking you."

There's worry in his own voice, and frustration. Much as he knows his brother loves him, there are things Drew has never told him, and will in all likelihood never tell him. Adam told Drew everything for years because there was no one else to tell; he didn't have any friends until he came to Degrassi, and with his parents not exactly being supportive, there was no one else to turn to. Not that Adam doesn't appreciate him and all, but Drew isn't exactly one to take things seriously, and more often than not Adam's attempts to talk to Drew about anything serious – especially girls – would get him more annoyed at his brother's immaturity than anything else. He knows it's just the way they relate to one another, and it doesn't make Adam love him any less, but still. You need more than just one person to confide in.

Ever since he started picking up on the vibe between them these past weeks, Adam can't help but wonder if there might be some sense to Bianca and his brother. Like they might actually be good for each other, in some weird way. The things she's done for Drew, the sacrifices she's made for him, the loyalty and devotion…that's something that's normally totally out of Drew's league. Adam knows Drew isn't always gentle with the things he's given, or understanding, or at times even appreciative. But the way he is with Bianca...Adam's been on the receiving end of Drew's better side enough times in his life that he knows what it looks and feels like when someone treats you as if they really love you.

"He hasn't said anything to me, either," she tells him. "Guess we're in the same boat."

Her words snap him out of his thoughts, and he suddenly feels stupid. He's not the only person here, and why is he sitting here musing over the love life of his brother and some adopted stray his family has picked up? God, he's like a living Taylor Swift song.

Besides. His brother is taken. Katie comes into Adam's mind for the first time tonight, and he can't help but feel a little resentment. Every single attempt Adam has made at Degrassi to get a girlfriend has ended in disaster, and here his brother is dicking around – literally – with two girls at once. Again.

_Girls I was interested in, too, nonetheless_, Adam adds, and dislikes the bitterness that he can taste as much as he welcomes it.

But still, Adam wonders why it took him this long to remember Katie at all.

"Great," Adam says, clearing his throat. "So now we're back to him refusing to deal. He'll just shut me down if I try to talk to him."

"It's his move," Bianca says. There's a charge in her voice, and Adam picks up on the fact that they're not talking about just what he means anymore.

**VI.**

His mother asks Drew to help her with the dishes after dinner. Bianca asks if she can help, and Mom says no. She says "okay" in this meek little mouse voice that sounds nothing like Bianca and tiptoes back upstairs to the guest room. Adam disappears downstairs before he can be asked to help out.

As it turns out, Adam didn't need to worry.

"I need to talk to you about something," his mother announces, and her words make him want to groan. He knows what that means. He's in trouble for something. He wracks his brains and tries to imagine what he did the past few days to piss her off. Did he forget to unload the dishwasher? Take out the trash? Clean up his room?

"You know I took her to the deposition at the lawyer's the other day?" she asks.

Drew nods. It doesn't escape him that Mom still doesn't say Bianca's name.

"I heard some…" she begins, then stops. "I had some time to think about some things."

Drew bites his lip. That's never good.

"And," she says, "I think I need to ask you this myself."

She braces herself against the countertop. Drew sees her knuckles turn white as she grips the wine glass she was using at dinner.

"I didn't want to ask this," his mom says. Her voice is almost too quiet for Drew to hear. She isn't looking at him. "And I think...it was always because I was little afraid to know the answer."

She rinses the wine glass under the sink, purple drips spiraling in the water. She sets the glass upside down on the granite counter top, then stops, putting her hands on her hips and just staring out the kitchen window.

"What happened that night?" she whispers.

Drew stares at her for a minute. One hand is holding a platter, half-loaded in the dishwasher.

"Why are you asking me?" he asks. "You know what happened. You heard it."

She was there when he confessed, the day Dave's dad took him in. The day they lied. The day _he_ lied, he amends.

"But _why_?" she asks.

"Why what?" he demands.

She opens her mouth, and he figures that she's going to ground him or yell at him or whatever. But instead, she snaps it shut again, and she looks away.

"Why her," she says.

Her wet hands grip the counter-top; her head is bent. She sighs, and Drew thinks for the first time that she looks very tired, and about as worn-out as he feels. Maybe more.

"I do," she tells him. "Understand. Why you did it."

Drew stares at the coffee cups upended on the top rack, not sure what else to say. This is the most his mother has ever said about the topic, since she heard him say that he killed a man. Even though it isn't true, Drew still can't help but feel responsible for the way she looked at him after he confessed that down at the precinct to Dave's father. It was almost like she was afraid of him. Like he was a stranger.

"But I hate that you took the blame for her," she finishes.

His head jerks up. What does that mean?

He remembers when their lawyer cleared him of the charges. What he said about the head wound thing not matching up to the story he and Bianca both told the cops. But that was passed off as a fluke, and the story was never questioned. They got away with it. But does she know?

"I _hate_ that this is going to follow you around for the rest of your life," she says. She finally turns to look at him, and Drew almost thinks he sees tears, but they're gone before he can be sure. "And all because of someone else."

"She needed me, Mom," he tells her. "What was I supposed to do? Let that psycho rape her in the alley? He probably would have killed her!"

"I know," she says. "I know. I just…I don't get…why her. Why keep risking _everything_ for her."

"Because she needs help!" he says. "She needs someone to care."

"And why does that have to be you?" Mom argues.

Drew thinks about holding back what pops in his mind, but figures, fuck it, he might as well go for it.

"Because she gets me," he says. "She's the only person who ever really did."

His mother crosses her arms and stares at him.

"She gets you," she repeats.

Drew doesn't miss the sarcastic edge.

He dumps the forks into the silverware tray. "Yeah," he says. "She does. She knows who I am, and still likes me."

His mother just keeps giving him that look, like she can't decide whether to believe him or just roll her eyes.

"She isn't like us, Mom," he says. "No one gives a damn about her. But no one really knows who she is."

"A good person," his mother says. More of that sarcastic edge.

He remembers saying those exact words to her That Night, when she refused to let him go to the concert.

"Yes," he says. His voice is hard. He's never spoken to his mom like this before, but he stands up straight and looks her right in the eyes. He has a good few inches on her, and he always seems to forget that. Usually talking to her makes him feel very small. "A good person. And nobody ever gives her a chance to see that. But look at everything she did for us!"

He sees something change in her face. She stares down at the ground, and he hopes that means she's at least considering what he said.

"Look, Mom." He thinks about what he said on prom night to Katie and Adam. "I have you. And Dad. And Adam, and Katie, too. I have a lot of people in my life that care about me. That want to be there for me. Bianca, she has no one. There's no one in her life that cares or can support her. She needs someone to do that. Because she's got so much good inside her, and nobody ever sees that. But I know for a fact that she's a good person."

They look at one another for a moment. He can't tell what his mom is thinking.

"She's one of the best people I know," he tells her. "Everything she did, she did for all of us. Not just to protect me. She put her own life in danger for me. And after that...I don't regret my choice for her."

Something clicks all of a sudden.

The feeling he woke up with that morning, when they woke up in his narrow bed on a sunless summer morning and he looked at her and knew this was it, has been with him this entire time. It's been making him near-crazy with want. And Drew figures that's enough of a light bulb moment for him, the starting pistol he's been waiting for.

He wonders why he didn't think of this a whole lot sooner, instead of getting stuck in all this Katie-Bianca crap.

There was never any choice to begin with, if he's being honest with himself.

And he thinks, for the first time ever, he just might be.

**VII.**

Sunset is crawling over the park. The cobalt skies are shot through with strips of pink and orange; the farther out the light is, the more brightly it burns a deep gold. As they get deeper into summer, the days are getting longer and the nights come slower, the sun taking its time sinking into the bleeding horizon and darkness seeping in through the purple smog clouds that turn the trees into black shadows. As she looks outside her window, the buildings on the skyline seem to drift farther away as the skies shift, and distant night create a luscious haze across the horizon.

There's a knock on the door.

Bianca turns around. "Yeah?"

There's a wait before she hears, "Can I come in?"

Before she can weigh the options, Drew slowly opens the door, poking his head around the other side.

"Can I come in?" he asks again.

She inches farther away from him, to the other side of the bed. "You shouldn't be in here, you know."

"It's okay. Mom's still at the grocery store with Adam." He shifts in the semi-open door, hands in his pockets, and she doesn't think she's ever seen him look this uncomfortable. Or uncomfortable at all.

"Unless you want me to leave," he adds, and takes a half-step out of the door frame.

She does, but doesn't. "What do you want?"

He stares at the ground, dragging his feet along the carpet. She can see him biting his lip, then he takes a breath and looks up at her.

"I broke up with Katie last night."

They sit and stare at each other in silence. Night begins to settle into the room, shadows ebbing the walls with dancing shapeless masses.

"How'd she take it?" Bianca finally asks.

Drew gives her a small grin. "How do you think?"

"Did she know?" she asks. "About…"

"I didn't tell her," Drew says.

"But she had have figured it out," Bianca says. "When you told her I was living with you…"

Drew's eyes slide to the ground, and Bianca gets it. "You didn't tell her."

"I didn't have to," he says. "She already figured. That it had something to do with us."

"So what happened?"

He rolls his eyes. "Screams. Accusations. Various curses."

"She isn't wrong," Bianca says.

Drew took a step closer. For a moment, she thinks he's going to take a seat on the bed, and he looks like he was considering it, but he stops so abruptly in place that he sways on his feet for a second.

"I should have ended it earlier," he tells her. "Like you said."

Bianca stares at her hands in her lap. "Did you want to?" she whispers.

"What?" He looks up at her, wide-eyed. "Yeah."

He takes a step closer to her. Mincingly, like he's approaching a nervous creature in the wild.

"Bianca," he says. His voice is like gravel. "I want to be with you."

"Then why didn't you do it then?" she says. He takes a step back at her tone. "After that first night? Or after prom?"

"Because I'm an idiot," he replies. "I liked who I was when I was with her. I liked how she thought I was a good guy. I liked how she looked at me, why she wanted to be with me."

Bianca closes her eyes at the words.

"But I don't want her," Drew says. She hears some steps, then feels the bed dip beside her, feels him inches away from her. Like you can feel the crackle of an oncoming storm in the air. "Not like I want you."

He leans in closer, and she feels his hand graze her jawline. It's fumblingly tender, and she can feel him shaking as he rests his fingers on her skin.

"I love you," he says.

She opens her eyes. He's staring at her the same way he did when they woke up together that first time, only a few days after prom. They had nightmares between the sheets and under their skin, and every scratch and bite and moan was their terror and desperation, their anger and grief, and the inability to keep any of it from colliding. There's a shift in the air around her, as if the night is turning inside-out. She half expects the lights to start flickering, hear the windows rattling in their frames as though thunder is rolling in.

He bends his forehead to hers. This close up, she can't see him directly. She just sees the blur of his features, the burn of his blue eyes, the heat of his flushed skin on hers.

"It was never a choice," he murmurs.

He pulls her close and kisses her, and it reminds her of the lights going on a dark stage, that first rush of a light on her as she starts to move her body, those few seconds of adrenaline before she lets herself go.

She returns back with just as much vigor, if not more. Her hands card in his hair and he takes her face in his hands, smoothing his fingers over her skin.

"God," he mumbles, and she chokes something she doesn't understand or realize she's trying to say. He just pins her underneath him on top of the rumpled covers, and unbuttons her shorts with crazy haste, tugging them down her legs.

As soon as she kicks her way out of them, she reaches up and grabs the side of his face, pulling him inches away from her own. Then the room spins and tilts, and in a whir of motion so quick she's not sure how it happened, they're spinning, and now she has him right where she wants him, hovering over him, her legs falling to either side and her mouth on his neck, kissing their way down his chest as her fingers spider across his body. She silences his groans with her mouth as she reaches up and unbuttons his shirt, and he pulls hers over her head and tosses it into the air, where it catches the top of his bedpost and hangs there.

He unsnaps her bra and runs his hands down the tan swoop of her back, and Bianca finds his mouth again. Their lips crash together, and it's like they're trying to prove something. She's not sure what, but she doesn't fucking care. It's like swallowing fire and she can't breathe, and when she tears her mouth off of his and gasps and she can tell he can't either.

Her back arches under his hands, and they push harder together, the burning friction of skin on skin almost unbearable. A low moan escapes one of them, but before another can get loose they silence each other with another kiss, and it's making her dizzy. She would cuss if she could breathe, but since neither of them can make a sound, she pushes harder against him as he shudders and bucks on the covers, these tiny desperate jerks that would make Bianca laugh usually, seeing him twisted and practically begging like that. But instead of taking a second or two to tease him, make him sweat it out a little bit longer, playing around like she usually would when she got a guy all hot and lathered like this, she just grinds harder against his jeans and kissing him with hurried need as their hands fly all over each other, frantically running over every bit of warm skin like they can't figure out where to hold on. Like they're afraid something might go wrong, or that it's not really happening and any second now this is all gonna end.

He pulls back from her slightly, and that cold fear shoots through her that it _isn't_ really happening. Like he made a mistake with Katie. But she doesn't see regret in his eyes, only need, and they're glowing, practically burning with it in the shadows.

"Wait," he croaks out. "Wait. Just…let me…"

She's already way ahead of him. Tugging down his jeans and boxers (god what a mess), she moves back on top of him, and a sound breaks from his throat like he's dying. His back tenses and arches, and his hands rake across her back so hard she knows they'll leave nail marks dug into the skin. They're both already slick-sticky and covered in sweat, and there's a dirty squelch they make as they slam and slide together. It sounds like some hungry sucking need, their skin clashing together with groans and desperate jerks as they punctuate the shadowed silence of the room with their guttural needs and filthy harmonies.

They keep colliding in furious, messy clash-chord rhythms until she can feel his limbs shaking, and he lets out a strangled sound. Then he stiffens completely, and she feels a white-hot rush wildfire through her as her head swims and her whole body hums. There's a quick, cut-off cry from somewhere, and it might have been from her but she doesn't know. She just grips onto Drew's shoulders and lets her head fall onto his chest, listening to the hammer of his heart while they ride it out together and wait for the world to turn itself right-side-up again.

For a while, it's all either of them can do to just lay there on the tangled, dirty covers, drenched and smelling and needing a long time to catch their breaths. After a while, she feels Drew turn them sideways onto the bed and slide out of her, pressing his face into her neck like he still needs to be impossibly close to her.

She opens her eyes, his face barely inches from her own, and he kisses her forehead. His lips slide across her skin, and she can feel the tiredness seeping through both of them. He meets her lips, whispering she can't understand in the slur of his voice as the words and vowels and sounds all run together, but she gets the general meaning.

He's always been more about what he _does_ rather than _says, _anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: If anyone is still reading this, I'm sorry for the major delay between this chapter and the last. I moved out of state a month ago to live with my friend, and between trying to get settled in and looking for a job (not to mention living with a cat who I think is planning to eat me in my sleep), things have been chaos lately. I haven't abandoned this story or writing in general, just been a little overwhelmed by real-world responsibilities and trying to do this whole "Being A Grown-Up" thing (though most of the time I feel like I'm an extremely stressed out imposter).**

**In other (better) news, we have Netflix at the new apartment, so when I'm not freaking out I can finally catch up on all the seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer I haven't seen in years. Plus, we have vodka. **

**The quote used in this chapter comes from "You Don't Know My Name" back during The Boiling Point. The single lyric in this chapter is from "It's The End of the World As We Know It" by R.E.M.**

**Twitter: AlbatrossTam14 (protected tweets)**

**I don't own Degrassi (or the one line from the song, either).**

**I.**

The morning is grey, and so far, unfriendly. The sky is washed out and blank, and while there's no rain everything seems soggy and limp, as if the whole world is having trouble trying to force itself out of bed to face the day.

Because that idea actually sucks, and all Bianca wants to do is crawl back under the covers and fall asleep for the next few hours. Preferably with Drew, but lately they haven't been able to find the time to do so when no one else is around. But it's her fantasy, so whatever, if she wants to crawl into Drew's bed in close-to-halfway-broad daylight with a cup of coffee and no clothes, she'll do it.

But instead she's going to another meeting with the lawyer, and to make this dawn excursion even more fun, she's stuck going alone with a coffee-deprived Mrs. Torres, who doesn't say anything but still gives off this vibe that makes Bianca fear even more than usual what will happen if she trips the wrong wire.

Mrs. Torres pulls off the main road and into a strip mall, where a Tim Hortons stands in the parking lot. She goes through the drive-thru, her voice sounding rough and dry as she gives her order. Bianca looks out the window at the bleak cityscape, the washed-out morning rinsing through her body and making her feel even more tired than she did when she first stumbled out of bed.

She hears Mrs. Torres mumble something under her breath; Bianca can't hear the words, but they sound decidedly unfriendly. She watches the woman run her hands through her hair, and Bianca thinks – not for the first time – that she looks good for a woman her age. Better than her aunt does, and she guesses Juliana is younger than Drew's mom.

Then again, she thinks, Audra Torres hasn't had to put up with five years of bullshit from Bianca. As Juliana never fails to remind her.

At dinner her the other night, Drew's mom abruptly asked her if they should call her aunt. Tell her what was going on, maybe get her to come to a meeting with the lawyer. Bianca had thought about the last time she actually talked to Juliana, right before the first meeting; her aunt's clipped, "_well, I don't know what they're going to do with you now. I don't think this is something they just give probation for."_ Then telling Bianca she had to work the double shift at work, and probably wouldn't be able to go; she hadn't even asked Bianca what day the meeting was, or what time.

She hadn't really felt like repeating this to Drew's mom, though, so instead she said, "She has work that day."

Drew's mom had frowned. "Well, could she not take a day off? This is pretty important."

Drew and Adam had stared down at their plates, quid pro quo for moments like this. Bianca had started at her own halg-finished mean, no longer hungry, feeling the woman's steely, penetrating gaze on her.

"She couldn't really handle this," she'd admitted. "This whole thing, she doesn't really know what to do. And she just wants to stay out of it."

She didn't add that Juliana didn't get why the Torreses would bother being so helpful to her: "_What are they getting out of it? The joys of hearing your dirty laundry? Are they expecting money from this? Because if so, this ends now. I'm not giving them anything. I can't afford those fancy lawyers."_

Mrs. Torres didn't say anything for a while; Bianca could feel her eyes drop, and then saw her fold her hands on the table and stare at them for a moment.

"Well, we can handle it, then," she'd finally muttered. Then she took a sip of wine, and the four of them finished dinner in silence.

But other than that, things seem a little less tense around the house. Almost something like familiar. She and Drew, back together. She and Adam, goofing off and ganging up on Drew whenever they need a laugh at his clueless expense; he's too easy. The three of them wasting a sticky afternoon doing nothing but complaining about the heat in the air-conditioned sanctuary of their basement while they marathon _The Walking Dead_ and eat Tostitos dipped in homemade salsa, or trying different combinations of fruit smoothies with their mom's new blender.

Her love for the food network seems to be rubbing off on the boys lately. They've been on a weird baking kick the past few days, using up most of the ingredients in the house, and they'd had to make two or three trips back to the store to restock and get stuff they'd never heard of, like Chinese five spice powder and caster sugar and bicarbonate soda. They looked up a ton of recipes for cakes Bianca had never heard of, but the weirder it was, the more the boys seemed to want to make it. Except for one instance when Drew came across a recipe for zucchini cake and shuddered.

"Seriously? Why do people do this? Who'd ever put that in a cake, anyway? It pollutes everything that's great about cake."

Their days have been filled new recipes and many failed attempts to bake from scratch. When Clare and Eli came over to hang out with Adam the other day, the five of them had a completely random – but, Bianca has to say, completely awesome – afternoon bake-off, where they made two cakes, a batch of lemon bars, and a loaf of banana bread. She and Adam had even talked the others into dying a batch of cupcake batter green.

"Why would anyone want to eat a green cupcake?" Drew had asked, biting into a lemon bar.

Adam and Bianca had looked at one another. "Why not?" Adam replied.

The cupcakes had looked awesome, but unfortunately had a weird aftertaste to them. Still, everybody ate one, and stuck their tongues out at each other like a bunch of five-year-olds, admiring their colored mouths. It was the stupidest way to spend an afternoon, and made Bianca happier than she could remember being since before Spring Break. Maybe even longer.

Drew especially has been really into the whole kitchen explosion. He even started cooking meals now, lasagna and spaghetti and homemade quesadillas, and bugged his mom to get more propane for the barbeque so he could grill steaks in this new marinade sauce he found at the grocery store on one of their baking runs. Mrs. Torres seems pretty confused with the whole thing, but amused that he's at least willing to do something around the house.

(Doesn't stop her from yelling at him for the mess, though. Somehow, Drew hasn't mastered the art of cleaning up after himself.)

Drew's been busying himself with trying a lot of these recipes after he ended things with Katie, and Bianca suspects that some of this newfound obsession comes from that less-than-stellar breakup; that he'd rather be making something successful instead of letting things fall apart and fail.

Or maybe it's something else entirely; the way he plugs in the iPod jack next to the blender and sings – horribly off-key with no sense of tone or pitch or rhythm – belting out the wrong lyrics to retro pop songs Bianca thinks he should be embarrassed to believe he knows, all with this completely not ironic smile on his face. He even pulls her in to dance sometimes, spinning her around with flour-colored hands and pushing her against the kitchen counter for a kiss that tastes like raw batter and molasses, smudging baking powder on her cheeks with his thumb. He's happier these days, and it makes the sleepless nights and bad dreams she knows he's still having weigh a little lighter on his shoulders and her own.

"Careful, it's hot."

Bianca blinks, and sees Mrs. Torres reaching around the driver's seat to hand a steaming Styrofoam cup to Bianca.

"I didn't know how you liked it," she says.

Bianca can feel her hands twitching under Drew's mom's scrutiny. She freezes for a moment, then reaches out and takes the cup. Her fingers brush the woman's, and for the briefest second Bianca sees she's less fierce and furious and Hell Hath No Fury, with her dark eyes still tired and the smell of hairspray still about her.

"Thank you," Bianca remembers to add.

Mrs. Torres hands her a brown bag. "They put some sugar packets in there for you."

Bianca nods and tears two Splendas, stirring them into the cup as steam curls around her fingers. Even as tired as she is, she doesn't feel much like coffee. Her stomach is already tied up in knots at the idea of talking to the lawyer again, though she can't imagine what else she has to tell him that she didn't already say in that disastrous deposition.

The memory of it makes Bianca burn inside, and she shifts the coffee in her lap, trying not to let her hands shake. Once again, she's reminded that the woman who just bought her a coffee knows every dirty little secret Bianca has. Not just the drugs and stuff, but what he made her do. And not just him, but his friends. All the disgusting things she did, how dirty she is, both inside and out.

(Plus, if she finds out Bianca's banging her son, it's officially The End.)

The lawyer's office smells the same – like geriatric candy and day-old tuna melt. Mrs. Torres sits, rigid as always, her back ramrod straight and her eyes sweeping the room like she's looking for a challenge. Bianca wishes she could sit up that well, but her body feels like it's sliding away from her. She shouldn't have had that coffee on an empty stomach.

"I want to prepare you for having to testify against him in open court," the lawyer tells them. He looks at Bianca, mouth set in that fake sympathetic look she hates. "As for the charges brought against you, Miss DeSousa, I won't lie; it's going to be tough to get a good deal from the DA. Especially with your previous record; the fact that you're already on probation for aggravated assault, DUIs, drug charges that go back nearly two years…"

He closes the record, the one with all of her black marks tallied up against her, and folds his hands neatly in his lap. "It just doesn't look good, especially to a judge, if the star witness in the case is someone who already had trouble with the law."

"Can't we get a motion passed to exclude those from court?" Mrs. Torres asks. "Make it so his attorney can't bring up her charges? If she's testifying against him, we could get any mention of them off the table."

"We could try," he says, "but I don't think the judge would go for it. They know part of her deal for testifying against Mr. Bell is that she gets a more lenient sentencing."

"What do I have to do?" Bianca whispers.

Both of them turn to look at her.

"In court," she says. Her voice sounds like sandpaper. "What will I have to do? What will Vince's lawyer ask me?"

"We'll have plenty of time to prep you for the witness stand," the lawyer says. "For now, we should focus on what to do about your particular charges."

Bianca nods faintly, but still can't make herself focus on his words. Instead, she can only imagine herself sitting on the witness stand in front of an entire courtroom, everyone inside listening to all the bad things she's done. And Vince, sitting a few feet away, burning holes into her as he stares her down.

Having to face him again makes her feel sick. She wishes she could get up and go to the bathroom, splash some water on her face, but she stays in place, hands twitching in her lap, and forces herself to listen.

"Miss DeSousa?"

Her head snaps up. Apparently they had been saying something to her; Mrs. Torres is looking at her with a small frown, though it doesn't look like she is particularly put-out by the fact that Bianca hasn't been listening. She might look almost concerned, but Bianca figures that's crazy.

"What?"

"I said, we're going to have to figure out what to do about your charges. Now, the DA is a little hesitant to take a plea agreement, seeing as how you're already on probation and have the record…"

"She's a minor," Mrs. Torres cuts in. "And she was doing those things because he was forcing her to under the threat of killing her and my son. Given those circumstances, a judge can't possibly say reducing her sentence isn't more than fair."

"Depends on what you and the DA consider fair," he says.

Bianca watches the woman's eyes narrow, blazing dark fire. _Don't talk back to me_, they say.

She now knows why the fury of his mother is always on Drew's mind.

"I could put a deal on the table. Knock it down to community service, extended probation." The lawyer shrugs. "But no guarantee they'd allow it."

Mrs. Torres makes her glance even more pointed.

"I thought that's what we were paying you for," she says coolly.

_Score! _Bianca wants to laugh, but bites it back.

The lawyer looks back at her, then at Drew's mom, then at his hands folded on the table top.

"I'll see what we can do," he says finally.

Mrs. Torres nods, still bristling. Bianca looks down at her hands, and almost doesn't realize Mrs. Torres was actually fighting _for her._

**III.**

As June inches into July and the days become hotter and longer, the sky bleached bone white from heat, they're spending more time together than apart, even though neither of them have admitted they're back together.

"What's with you?" Adam asks on their way to physio. Normally Mom would take Adam, since his appointments are at some ungodly hour Drew refuses to recognize anytime he isn't forced to be in school, but since she and Bianca have another meeting with the lawyer he was forced to haul himself out of bed and drive Adam all the way across town. They stop at Tim Hortons on the way, Drew tossing his change into the cup holder while he balances the steaming cup with one hand.

Drew turns to his brother. "What?"

Adam takes a sip of his hot chocolate – he hates coffee. Some of the foam on top gathers on his upper lip, and Drew feels this ungodly weird need to brush it off. It's the early morning hour. It does things to you.

"What's going on with you lately?" Adam asks. "You look all happy and stupid."

Drew reaches one hand over and swats at Adam. "Nothing's with me," he says, trying very hard not to think of waking up yesterday morning with Bianca's mouth on him. He takes a swig of his coffee, hoping to look normal, and then ends up coughing and sputtering when the burning liquid goes down the wrong pipe.

Adam is smirking at him like he _knows_ something. "Smooth move, Bro."

"I'm still right," Drew wheezes, trying to stop coughing. He can feel his eyes tearing up, and wipes them with the back of his hand.

"A few days ago you looked ready to punch the living shit out of everyone. Now you look like Ron when he drank that love potion in Book 6. What, did you walk in on Bianca in her underwear?"

When Drew doesn't answer, Adam asks, "getting out of the shower?"

"You're retarded," Drew tells him, ignoring his brother and looking straight ahead at the road. He hopes to God he's not blushing.

"You're defensive," Adam replies in a voice that sounds too much like a laugh.

"And you can always walk to physio," he tells him. He wonders if he should just tell him, but bites the inside of his cheek and focuses on the road.

Adam takes another sip of his drink, his eyes rolling. "If you say so."

His brother reaches over and turns the dials, tuning it to Solid Rock 98. The DJ, some guy named Bullfrog, is doing some pitch about the new Pageant Fury album that is coming out in a few weeks (whatever that band is – Drew doesn't pretend to understand or like Adam's weird taste in music) and plays one of their songs off their last album, something Drew remembers Adam playing to death every single freaking day last fall. Adam turns it up and sings along, and Drew remembers to breathe and let the guy who got shot pick the radio station – for now. Adam keeps singing along to the station, drumming his hands on his pant legs in this way that, if Drew were lame like that, he might find oddly endearing. But instead he keeps his eyes on the road and is glad that Adam seems distracted for a minute and isn't asking questions.

Even if he hasn't told his brother yet about the whole Katie/Bianca thing, all the questions and teasing make him wonder if Adam already knows. His little bro always has a knack for knowing the stuff that Drew really wishes he didn't, and more than once Adam's used it to blackmail Drew for something, like doing Adam's chores for a week or a ride to the comic book store at some freakishly early hour so he can wait in line to get some limited edition something-or-other.

Drew sneaks a ninja glance at Adam out of the corner of his eye. His brother doesn't seem to notice Drew watching him. He's still doing his Little Drummer Boy singalong, looking out the window. Drew tries to tell himself that if Adam knew about what was going on with him and Bee, he would be more vocal about it, more in-your-face.

He always seems to know when Drew's hiding something.

Drew turns back to the road and merges onto the highway. The grey sky and the street below him seem to merge on the horizon, as if they become one and the world just stops there. Like he and all the rest of the cars on this dreary stretch of highway at this hour are driving into some washed-out oblivion.

Even though neither of them ever broach the topic, Drew has wondered for some time now if Adam might actually know what he and Bianca lied about. Adam has never asked him about the night Anson died, and Drew never brings it up. But if Adam does know anything, Drew wonders if he just hasn't asked about it because he really doesn't want to know.

Drew can understand that. There are days when he can't admit it to himself, either. Sometimes, he even forgets that it WAS a lie, since it's so ingrained in The Story, the fabric of That Night. Then he remembers – very clearly – what is a lie and what is truth, what is real and what he tells himself every day in order to just be able to get through it all.

He remembers the way his mother's face had turned completely white when he confessed at the station, the way her eyes had looked when the words _her son_ and _murdered_ became officially linked together. The way Dave, K.C., and even Owen – hell, pretty much everyone at school, given the rumors that were going around – weren't quite able to look him in the eyes when he came back to Degrassi. The way Adam was all quiet and weirdly considerate, but it seemed to Drew like he was avoiding him at the same time. And how his dad one night just randomly came into his room one night, woke him up, and said, "love you, bud", like Drew was four or something, and never mentioned that moment to anyone.

All things considered, he thinks he got away pretty easy. He knows Bianca had it way tougher than he did, what with being Vince's right hand man for months, suffering in silence. Even the fact that everyone thinks he offed a guy kind of pales in comparison to what he knows she went through. But even though he didn't make the strike, Drew doesn't exactly like admitting to himself that he had a hand, however indirectly, in killing someone.

But there isn't much he or Bianca can do about it, short of telling Adam the truth, and there are some things he's okay with his brother not knowing. Even if he's always told Adam everything, and the things he doesn't tell Adam just seems to figure out.

He's okay with keeping this to himself.

"Dude," he hears Adam say from what sounds like a far distance, "you missed the exit."

**IV.**

_We'll find a way_. He holds her hand even when he was asleep, his fingers warm and slack and covering hers. Bianca thinks it's almost normal, spooning up against each other – this cuddly patheticness, as if they were a pair of virgins that had just had their first times but spent more time being cute and together than they spent together and together. She can see how people could actually enjoy sleeping together; really doing just that, even with their clothes on and both of them on their separate sides of the bed.

The room is filled with sunlight, shadows from the blinds on his windows twisting and dancing on the walls. There's a smell she can't define in the air, but it smells warm and comforting, and makes her sink into the covers, contented as she molds herself to his side. She thinks it's Tuesday, or maybe a Saturday. Whatever day it happens to be, it makes her feel lazy and free, completely content to listen to the quiet rustlings their bodies make against the duvet cover and each other's skin.

Drew blinks himself awake. "How long were we out?" he mumbles.

Bianca peers at the clock on his nightstand. As soon as his parents left for work, she came down here, and that was before the sun was still up. Now it screams at her. "Wow. A long time."

"Seriously?" Drew says, peering at the clock. "That is…a very not-morning hour."

Bianca yawns. "Wanna get up?"

He grins down at her. "Are you kidding me?"

"Well, how about at least a shower?"

"Shower as in one?" His face brightens. "As in together?"

She climbs on top of him, putting her mouth to his hear. "As in no wonder you're failing English."

Drew practically pushes her out of bed, and she falls off the edge, naked and wrapped in a sheet, and he starts laughing that high-pitched, ridiculous giggle he has that sounds like squeaking two balloons together. He doubles over, practically in tears, and she just sits there on the floor howling and feeling like an idiot, and it feels so fucking _good_ to just be an idiot.

There's a pound on the door that startles the both of them back to their senses, trying to catch their breaths.

"Dude." Adam's voice sounds flat and not a little aggravated. "You need to get your butt out of bed and help me clean the kitchen. Mom said we better be done before she gets home or else you're not going to Dave's party this weekend."

Bianca holds still and tries not to make a sound. A cold chill pools in her stomach, and she wonders if Adam wondered why the two of them just happened to sleep in this late, why they neither of them have made an appearance today, and if they opened her guest room door and saw her empty bed, the one she slipped out of when she heard Mrs. Torres drive away to work this morning.

Adam bangs on the door again. "Come on, man. It's, like, one in the afternoon. Get out of bed already. The guy with one arm can't clean the oven by himself."

Drew bites back another peel of hysterics and motions for her to be quiet.

"Coming," he says, arching his eyebrows and looking at her.

Bianca rolls her eyes at him, holding a hand over her mouth.

"Did you see Bianca today?"

Drew freezes, his jeans halfway up his legs. "What?"

"Bianca," Adam calls through the door. "She's not up yet. What, did you guys have some bad movie marathon last night? Cause all those _Saw_ DVDs are overdue, by the way. We need to tell Mom and Dad to get Netflix already."

"Yeah," Drew calls, fumbling with the last few buttons of his shirt. "No, I don't know where she is. Probably still sleeping."

"I checked," Adam says. "She's either the world's heaviest sleeper, or she's not home."

"Maybe she went out," Drew says.

"Where would she go?"

"I don't know. Maybe to hang with friends?"

Adam laughs. "Like who?"

Bianca's face heats up. She looks down at the carpet as she pulls the blanket more tightly around her shoulders. It's not like she can say anything, and even if she could, what would she say? Adam's not exactly wrong.

"Maybe she went to her aunt's," Drew says. "She hasn't been over there in a while. Did you text her?"

"Yeah. She didn't answer."

"Well, she'll be home eventually." Drew motions her away and Bianca presses herself against the wall, hidden behind the door. Her mind turns over the fact that he used the word _home_.

Drew makes sure she's hidden before opening up. "Guess we clean the kitchen."

"Guess," she hears Adam say. "Hey, did she say anything to you lately?"

"Like what?" Drew asks.

"I dunno," Adam says. "Like, about the lawyer, or what Mom and Dad are saying, or what might be going on with her?"

"Dude, nothing's going on with her."

"How do you know?" Adam says.

"Because if she did, she would tell me about it."

Bianca bites back a response and Adam replies, "Why would she talk to you about it?"

There's a long enough silence for Bianca to know Drew's recoiling, trying to figure out what to say to Adam that won't give them away.

"I dunno," Drew mumbles. "We're friends, you know? She'd probably talk to me if she needed help."

"Maybe," Adam says, with just enough suspicion to let Bianca know he doesn't believe Drew.

"What do you think might be going on with her?" Drew asks.

"I don't know," Adam starts, then his voice trails off.

"Wait," he says slowly. "Are those Bianca's pajama pants?"

"What?" Drew's tone all but blurts out the truth. She hears Adam walk into the room, then tugs the sheet around her as he turns and comes face to face with her, pressed against the wall.

"Oh god," he says. His eyes get wide, and his mouth hangs open a little. But, she thinks, he doesn't actually look that surprised. Like, at all.

"I mean…" Adam says, "Hey." He turns to Drew. "And oh god."

Bianca steps out from the door's shadow. "I should go put some clothes on," she says, turning away from them.

"No," Adam says quickly. "Umm…I'll just…go. Somewhere. Else. Somewhere loud. And far away."

His eyes flicker back between her and Drew.

"Just, uh…Mom gets home at four-thirty. We need the kitchen cleaned by then. So you might want to be vertical. And…clothed."

He spins on his heels and rushes out the door, pulling it shut behind him.

Drew leans against the closed door and blows out a breath.

"That was awkward," he mutters.

"Do you think he's mad?" Bianca asks.

"Why would he be mad?"

She pictures his face again, how not-surprised it looked to see her there. "Did you tell him about Katie?"

He looks at her, his face drawn into a scowl.

"You didn't tell him," she answers. "Why the hell not?"

Drew whumps his head against the door. "I don't know, okay?"

"No, not okay," she says. She grabs her discarded pajamas, pulling them on over her. "Why didn't you at least tell him you dumped your _girlfriend_ before getting back with me?"

Drew turns away from her and doesn't answer.

Bianca winds the bed sheet she'd been using into a ball and throws it at him before she walks out.

**V.**

Drew takes a deep breath before heading upstairs to find Adam sitting at the kitchen table. His brother doesn't look at him, which Drew can't decide is a good thing or a bad thing.

Drew crosses his arms over his chest. "It just happened," he says, before Adam can say anything else.

Adam snorts. "What, like, 'hey, look at that, you're in me'?"

"No." His brother shakes his head. "Adam, it just happened, okay?"

"Does Katie know?" he demands.

Drew hesitates a moment before saying, "I broke up with her."

"Before or after you two started doing the horizontal polka?" Adam says.

When Drew doesn't answer, Adam rolls his eyes. "Oh, that makes it even better."

Drew opens his mouth to say something and Adam cuts him off with, "If you say 'it just happened' one more time…"

"Look, I know it's not good, okay," he says. "It's not the perfect way I wanted this to go. But with her…there is no other way."

"Other than cheating on your _girlfriend_?" Adam argues.

"Okay, I feel like crap for how Katie got screwed in this." He looks at Adam, who just shakes his head. But his brother doesn't look particularly surprised. He hadn't even looked surprised when he'd found the two of them – like he kinda always knew, but really didn't _know_.

Now he just looks...disappointed.

"We…" he tries to figure out how to word this. "Stuff happened. Between me and Bee. It was after prom, and everything was really confusing… and I felt bad, because I was still with Katie, and Bianca didn't want us to be like that. So I broke it off with Katie, and now Bianca and I are back together. Which, I guess, you already know."

"So, wait…" Adam says slowly. "You guys are sleeping with each other so you wouldn't feel guilty about sleeping with each other?" He shakes his head again and sighs. "Somewhere, even you have to see the troll logic in that."

Drew throws his hands in the air. "I didn't want it to go down this way"

He rushes on, because now that it's out in the open, he needs to say it all.

"I really didn't. But… with her, it's supposed to be like this. Us. Because we feel the same way. And…"

He pauses. If there's any right words to say, he doesn't know them. Which is weird, because he usually always knows what to say.

A phrase pops back into his mind, from nearly a year ago:

"_The girl who's worth it requires an effort, like a gesture or something._ _Not the same old Drew tricks!"_

Well, to hell with that.

To hell with gestures. With effort, with tricks, with flirty games and charming smiles and the mega-watt Torres charisma he knows so well and understands exactly how to use. To hell with it all, because it's all bullshit, anyway.

"To hell with what else there is," he finishes. He sweeps his arm in the air, as if wiping everything away – Alli and Katie, Anson and Vince, gangs and guns and cages and every rule he's broken for what really matters. "Because she's always going to be a part of my life."

The words sink in between them. It's the first time he's ever said that out loud, and hearing them makes the air feel heavier, more charged, like a current thrumming on a livewire. Or an electrical storm.

"Wow, dude," Adam says after a minute. His eyes are wide, and this time, Drew sees the surprise in them. "I expected it to be intense, but that was, like, Nicholas Sparks intense."

"Who's Nicholas Sparks?"

"Never mind," Adam says. "That was just…way more than I expected to hear."

"What did you expect to hear?" Drew asks.

"I don't know." He shrugs his good shoulder. "I knew you guys were up to something, but the whole Forbidden Love angle wasn't what I was thinking."

"It's not a Forbidden –" he begins, then says, "we were _not_ that obvious."

Adam rolls his eyes. "Define obvious. The way you guys haven't been talking, then all those soap opera-y looks you shoot at each other…"

"We're not that bad," Drew insists.

"Watching you guys is like watching that shitty daytime television I had to sit through when I was still in the hospital," Adam says. "Except more entertaining. And no coma babies."

Drew stares at him. "Coma babies?"

"And you guys DO act like you have the most forbidden of forbidden loves, or whatever," Adam says, with another pointed eye roll. "Please. You two get together and it's like the world explodes." He holds up his sling. "Need a reminder?"

Drew throws a wadded-up napkin at him. Even joking, he doesn't like Adam bringing that back up. Not like Drew won't feel guilty about it for the rest of his life, or anything, since Adam _is_ pretty much right.

Adam sighs. "So," he says. "You and her."

Drew doesn't know what else to do. He shrugs his shoulders, feeling a little embarrassed when he thinks over the words he just said. It sounds like some silly movie. He'll definitely hear about it later from Adam when it comes for dishing out some teasing.

For now, though, his brother just shakes his head.

"Cassie Lang and Nate Richards," he says, more to himself than Drew. "Liu Kang and Princess Kitana. Michael Scott and Holly Flax." He looks at Drew and snorts. "Freaking Angel and Buffy."

"What are you talking about?"

"Forbidden love," Adam says, and this time, there's a smile on his face. "Guess we should all just hunker down and wait for Apocalypse, nowish."

Drew has to smile. "Dude, shut up. We are NOT that bad."

"It's the end of the world as we know it," Adam sings. He looks up and grins at Drew. "And I feel fiiiiine…"

**VI.**

Bianca comes down to do laundry on Sunday morning, and is surprised to see Drew's mom already there, pulling crumpled hunks of soaking wet clothes out of the washing machine and into the dryer.

She's about to turn tail and go back upstairs when Mrs. Torres says, "there's space in the washer" without turning around to look at Bianca.

Bianca hesitates, not sure if she wants to tangle with Drew's mom this early on a Sunday morning. But when Mrs. Torres just goes back to loading the dryer like Bianca's not even there, she decides to take the offensive and slips into the designated space of the basement known as the laundry room and dumps her clothes in the washer, painfully aware of the thongs, short shorts, and low-cut tops that tumble in as she upends the grocery bag she's been keeping her dirty clothes in. Normally she would just wash her underwear and bras in the sink at Juliana's, but there's no way in hell she's going to hand-wash her slutty underwear in front of Drew's mom.

Thankfully, Mrs. Torres either doesn't notice or is doing her best to pretend she doesn't notice. She reaches into the cabinet and pulls out a box of lavender-and-vanilla scented dryer sheets, and holds out a bottle of detergent to her.

"Thank you," Bianca says, and wonders if she ought to walk down to the corner mart a few blocks away from the park to get her own detergent. She figures the less space she takes up in this house, the better.

Bianca does laundry every other Sunday morning – or at least, she did when she was living with her auntie. Keeping up that same pattern here makes her feel more normal, as if she still has one thing in her life this whole gang mess didn't completely screw up. Besides, Sunday mornings are for sleeping in here; none of the male members of this house will crack an eyelid until after 11. So it's peaceful and quiet, and she can do her laundry in private.

They didn't have a washer or dryer at her apartment, so she had to use the Laundromat a few blocks away. In the winter, when the cold was too unbearable to brave, Bianca would just wash her clothes in the sink. It saved her a little money, and besides, it paid off to not have total creepers staring at her when she dumped her panties and clubbing dresses into the washer, their eyes imagining those dirty clothes clinging to her body. Normally she could ignore it, but when she got sick of being ogled by weirdos and pervs and the occasional woman who would give her dirty looks, she gave up on the idea altogether and just used her own sink. She got to avoid being stuck in that tiny, overheated little room that reeked of mildew and BO, even if the clothes didn't get as clean as she knew a tumble in the washer could get them.

Mrs. Torres shoots her a sidelong glance, and Bianca realizes that she's just standing in front of the washer, uncapped bottle of detergent in hand, staring off into space. Feeling stupid, she dumps a capful into the machine, sets it on the cold cycle, and hears the rumble under her hand as she closes the lid.

There's a pile of clean clothes on the ironing board, and Mrs. Torres starts folding them into crisp little piles. Bianca stands there, wondering if she ought to help, then reaches hesitantly towards a dark green t-shirt of Drew's and folds it over her arm.

His mom watches her, but doesn't say anything. Bianca places the shirt on the end of the ironing board, and when Mrs. Torres still doesn't say anything, she reaches for another shirt, rustling out the wrinkles and folding it into a neat square.

They go on like this for a while, some strange, silent tandem ballet. Bianca reaches for the clothes, folds them over her arms, and hands the squares to Mrs. Torres, who stacks them neatly into the laundry basket at her feet. They exchange socks until they find mates, iron slacks until they get out the creases, and turn in everything that was inside-out. Without a word, they both grab the ends of a bed sheet, waving out the wrinkles and then meeting in the middle as they fold it together into a small square. Neither of them speaks or looks at each other much, but the laundry gets folded from a messy pile of warm, sweet-smelling fabrics into neat, almost militarily organized stacks of clothes ranging from big to medium to small, like they just folded a ton of darks for the Three Bears in that one story.

She folds the last of the load, a dark red t-shirt that belongs to Drew with a football logo on the front. It's one of her favorite shirts of his, because it's old and has been washed so many times that it's got that impossible softness to it. She takes it from him sometimes to wear, and he teases that he really must like her, because he loves that shirt and oh yeah, he's pretty sure he threw up on in once or twice.

Drew's mom picks up the laundry basket, balancing it on her hip, and it's again when Bianca sees how pretty she probably was when she was young, and how she's actually one of those lucky women who ages really well. Even without the make-up and crisp suits that define her everyday attire, even when she's wearing jeans (and definitely NOT Mom Jeans, Bianca notices) and a short-sleeved button down decorated with tiny blue flowers (Bianca never pictured her for the floral type) she looks good. Still stern, but less severe. Like she just knows what to do every moment of each and every day, and never imagines it will go any less than what she determines it to be – even something as mundane as doing her family's weekly laundry.

His mom places the bucket on the bonus room couch, and then goes to the hall closet. She pulls out a small hamper, and hands it to Bianca.

"You don't have to use grocery bags," she tells her. "It's a little more convenient like this."

Bianca takes it from her, surprised. "Thank you," she manages.

Mrs. Torres nods curtly, then picks up the laundry basket and heads to the staircase. She pauses before she goes up, though, and looks over at Bianca, still standing in the middle of the laundry room with her new hamper in her hands.

"There's coffee," his mother says, before turning abruptly and going back upstairs. Bianca hears her steps up the floor, then the door swing shut behind her at the top.

Behind her, the washer gurgles.

**VII.**

She gets back to her room, her new hamper filled with newly-folded clothes, and sees a package on her bed. A new pair of hose; she had to throw her old ones out after they ripped at the bottom. There's also hand soap for the bathroom and a new pack of socks.

She goes downstairs, and the kitchen's empty. There's a clean coffee cup sitting by the pot.

There's also a fresh pot brewing.

**VIII.**

The sun is still out, but the heat has gone down. Now it's a dry, windy night, and the red sunset cools on his skin and makes it glow the color of sand. Adam sits back in his chair on the patio, swatting away at the mosquitoes that hover around his head, and tries to ignore the grumble of his stomach, telling him Drew better hurry up and get back from the hardware store with that new tank of propane for the grill so they can make their burgers, already.

He tilts his head back and sees the sky lit up in flames. Reds and golds and purples streak over the cityscape that looks like a shadow under the fading sun, like the buildings are a distant memory. The smeared tapestry of the sky looks like it goes on forever, the streaks a formless eternity of lush, undulating colors. He closes his eyes, breathing in the fresh air that smells like dust, honeysuckle, and onion grass.

The sound of a door clicking shut behind him makes him crack his eye open, and Bianca steps out onto the patio, barefoot with her damp hair tied back in a bun. Some curls fall loose, framing her sunburned face. In the settling night, her skin glows almost copper, and he can see the natural red shot through her dark hair.

"How's the arm?" she says, taking the seat next to him and curling her legs underneath her.

He holds up the sling. "Won't be ballroom dancing for a while."

She might have cracked a small grin. "Too bad. We made a great team."

He nods, then turns away. An awkward silence hits, and he feels weird having this be so clumsy. He and Bianca have never run out of things to talk about the whole time she's been living here, but somehow the not-so-discovery from the other morning has made it strange.

"It wasn't supposed to turn out this way," Bianca blurts out.

He turns to her. She looks down at her knees, and she looks almost shy. "Kinda just happened."

Adam quirks a smile. "Drew said that too," he says. "A lot."

"I know it's not…" she starts, then stops. Takes a breath, and says, "this whole thing was really big mess, and I know it's not helping my track record or anything."

Adam's smile fades. He wonders why Bianca is telling him all this; why she even cares enough about what he thinks of her to try and apologize for her and Drew. The fact that she feels the need to apologize in the first place. She never gave a shit about what anyone thought of her, and that was what sparked his interest in her way back when (besides being one of the hottest girls in school).

Bianca shifts in her seat again, resting her chin on her knees. She looks away from him, focusing on some spot on the patio.

"I didn't want to be her anymore," she says quietly.

"Who?" Adam asks.

"_That_ girl," she tells him. "_That _Bianca. The one that put you through a door. And took your brother from Bhandari. And has the record." She shakes her head. "I didn't want to be that girl again."

Her voice drops off again.

"I guess I'm still her," she says.

Her reference to the past year of everything they've all been through makes Adam raise his head. He doesn't hold much of a grudge against Bianca anymore for the whole "Head-Meets-Door" thing; she apologized for it, and it's kind of hard to hate someone who reminds him of a kicked dog; knock them around enough, and they think they've actually done something to deserve it. But hearing her talk like this, holding herself together as she calmly recites all the reasons why she doesn't think she deserves another chance – it's not quite self-pity, not quite anger, not quite sadness.

"You're not," Adam says firmly.

Bianca looks over at him in disbelief.

"If you were" he explains, "You wouldn't be beating yourself up like this."

For more than just the door thing. For more than just the Boiler Room fiasco. For even more than the night everything changed. For being here now; for dragging them all down to Hell with her, even though that was the last thing she wanted.

"I didn't want to hurt anyone," she whispers.

Adam feels a tug in his chest at the great cosmic unfairness of it all. She did everything she could to keep Drew safe from Vince, and they all paid Hell for it in the end.

She fiddles with one of the ends of her curls, winding it around her pointer finger. "I guess that's why Drew didn't break up with Katie as soon as…" She sighs. "He didn't want to be blamed for hurting her. He was hoping she'd give him a reason to leave. Or I'd tell him to. That way he didn't look like the bad guy."

Adam snorts. "Yeah. Bad move on his part."

"I still went along with it, though." She frowns. "One more thing to not be proud of."

"We all have those," he says.

"Wanna compare?"

He shakes his head. "Not so much"

She looks over at him, a small smile on her face. A million years ago, he would have thought that was one of the sexiest things he'd ever seen, and would have tried to flirt back. But now the look just makes her look sad. She's not the sobbing, mascara-covered mess she was when Drew hauled her into his hospital room the morning after prom, but Adam doesn't remember ever seeing Bianca look less like Bianca.

"He was right about you," Adam says.

She looks up at him. "About what?"

He looks at her with everything he hopes will let her know where she stands with him, once and for all. "Being a good person," he replies.

He watches her face change. He looks at her until she looks away, lowering her head and gazing down at the table, tracing the glass with one finger.

"Shut up," she says finally.

He doesn't look away. "It's true."

He sees her shake her head, looking frustrated, like she STILL can't believe him.

"I just want you to know that I'm okay with this," he says. "Whatever this…is. Between you and Drew; I'm happy for you both."

He shrugs the good shoulder. "I mean, not that you need me to be okay with it, but…"

"Why?" she interrupts. Her legs shift underneath her, and for a moment he thinks she's going to run. "Everything I put you guys through…"

Adam throws his hands in the air.

"Because," he says. "You guys. You just…"

He shakes his head, at a loss for any other way to explain this. "You work," he finally says. "I don't know WHY it works, but it works. It just IS. Like, kinda perfectly."

Bianca hugs her knees to her chest; the urge to run looks like it's past.

"I don't know anybody else who could put up with him the way you have," he tells her. "All the stupidity, all the bad choices, all the times you want to drill ideas into his thick head and realize you can't do that because they STILL won't stick." Adam rolls his eyes. "I didn't think anyone could put up with that bullshit except me."

He looks at her and shakes his head. "But you don't put up with it. You freaking LOVE him for it. And I don't know why. Because normally, he has no idea what to do with something like that. But with you, he does. And he doesn't need to make any other choice. He just…knows."

Bianca's eyes have been getting wider with every word he says. Adam leans back in his seat, looking out at the sun setting far off on the horizon, a kaleidoscope fusion of earth and sky.

Adam knows that Drew's always been more about what he does than says. When they were little, Drew would always just give him the stuff he wanted – the bigger piece of pizza, the last pack of gummies, the Player 1 Nintendo controller. Once he left Adam an entire stack of clothes, right after a really big fight with Mom over dressing as Gracie for a family dinner with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Brian. After his mother had laid out a skirt and heels on the edge of his bed, Drew had set a plastic bag on top of the skirt filled with boy's clothing. All of it was older stuff he'd outgrown – hoodies and t-shirts, a pair of sweat pants, a black leather belt to wear on special occasions, a baseball cap, and even a tie. They were all wrinkly and smelled, but they were clothes, and none of them came from the girl's department at JC Penney.

He tries, Adam knows. He's such a sap sometimes, getting silly and sentimental and stupid. It makes Adam roll his eyes and want to punch him in the arm and make fun of him. But at the same time it kinda makes him feel bad for picking on him, because Drew _tries_.

"When I think of all the choices he made for you," he murmurs, "What he lived with and why he's the way he is now…"

Adam sighs. "He's never asked for anything back. He's just there. He stayed. You're enough to keep him staying. You're more than enough."

Adam wonders if he's imagining that there might be tears in her eyes, but then Bianca blinks and she looks normal.

"I'm in love with your brother," she says suddenly.

Her eyes get wide, surprised at her own words. She glances over at him, turning red, and ducks her head as he stares at her.

Then, he laughs.

Really laughs, as in throws his head back and howls with obnoxious" Will-Ferrell-Movie-Watching" laughter, his head falling back on his shoulders as he closes his eyes and lets himself crack up.

"Shut up," Bianca snaps, but she's trying not to laugh, too. "I'm not kidding."

"Oh, I know," he gasps in between spasms of laughter. "It's funnier cause it's true."

Bianca rolls her eyes. "And here I thought we were having a moment."

"We are," Adam says. He takes a slow, deep breath and tries to contain his laughter.

"We are," he repeats.

He takes another breath, and this time he's serious.

"I wondered when one of you was going to own up to it. I figured it would be you first. Has he told you?"

"No," she says, too quickly. She looks away, and he knows she's lying.

Wow. So the Caveman actually said it. The three forbidden words he wasn't sure his brother even knew _how_ to say. With all the girls Drew's hooked up with over the years, he didn't know Drew spoke this particular language.

Then again, he knows just as well as anyone that Bianca isn't another hook-up to Drew.

"Have you told him?" he asks. When Bianca doesn't look at him, he groans. "God, you two are the worst. No wait, I take that back. Eli and Clare are the worst." He shakes his head. "I swear, I just need to put you all in a room and let you all just bang it out."

Bianca laughs. "Not sure Eli's my type," she says. "Too short."

"You'd really never be interested in a short guy?" he says, trying to sound like it's completely a joke.

Bianca laughs again, but shakes her head. "Sorry, Short Round."

Adam sighs. "And another one bites the dust," he laughs.

Bianca smiles. "One of them won't," she reassures. "One day."

"Thanks, but have you checked out my record?" He holds up one hand. "There's you – " he puts one finger down, "Fiona – lesbian – Katie – wasn't into me – and the last girl I hit on was a Grade 11 at prom who thought I was twelve." He shakes his head. "Which, given, isn't as bad as thinking I'm a girl, but still. Not exactly a spotless reputation."

"Reputation isn't everything," she says quietly.

He has to smile at that. "Touché," he says. "Still. It's not like there are a billion girls lining up to ignore that."

Bianca shakes her head.

"You don't want someone to ignore it," she says. "You want someone to take you for it. Someone to know that you're more than that." She smiles at him. "You'll find someone."

The irony of Bianca giving him this reassurance makes him start laughing again. "Wish you had a crystal ball."

"Tarot cards," she replies. "My auntie's kind of New Age-y."

Adam grins. "I think I'll pass."

He thinks he's starting to realize what Drew meant when he said that Bianca would always be in his life. Because even though Adam doesn't really know her, she has a history with them; not just his brother, but now their entire family. No matter how the court stuff turns out in the end, all of this will stick with them for years.

"Hope he gets back soon," she says. She stretches her legs out and leans back in her chair, and Adam can't help but notice that she doesn't look like she's sweating at all. Of course, he reasons, it might have something to do with the fact that he's wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt of Drew's and a pair of dark green cargo pants, whereas Bianca's wearing a black tank top and red shorts so short Adam might as well call them underwear. But still, she doesn't look like she's sweating at all, whereas he can feel the dampness trickling down his backside, clinging him to the patio chair. Looking at her and trying to get comfortable himself, he's reminded why he hates and loves summer all at once.

"He better," Adam says. "I'm starving."

Bianca picks up the grilling spear sitting on the table, and starts poking the air with it absentmindedly.

"Whoa!" Adam says, as one of the strikes comes very close to his head. "Watch it, woman. You're dangerous."

Bianca grins. "Only if you're unarmed."

Adam picks up the huge pair of tongs, and returns her blow with one of his own. They continue to spar at the table a moment before jumping into a full-on fencing match, the air clanging with the sound of metal-on-metal and their laughter as they duck and bend and meet each other strike for strike.

"Wow," a voice calls out. They stop their fencing for a moment to see Drew hauling the new propane tank around the yard.

He looks at the two of them with their dueling tongs and laughs. "When I'm laughing at the immaturity, be scared."

They put down their weapons, a little sheepish. Drew lifts the tank a few more feet, then sets it down with a grunt by the barbeque.

"I am the man," he announces proudly. "And I have the tool."

"That's for sure," Adam says.

Drew scowls, his face turning dark red. Bianca grips the edge of the table as she doubles over laughing.

"Shut up," his brother mumbles.

**IX.**

It's a starless night; bullet-colored clouds that look like they're supposed to be important are rolling silently over the house. A curtain of heavy humidity smothers the both of them as they kick the sheets off his bed and make love on the mattress cover.

Afterward, they lay on top of the thin blue sheet, sweat cooling their bodies and making the goosebumps rise on their damp skin, lamenting that Drew doesn't have a ceiling fan. It's nice to not need to rush around or hide, because with his parents gone for the night to see Adam's godparents in Bethesda, they have the house to themselves until the next morning. It's a nice reprieve from everything, including taking both their minds off meeting with the lawyer the day after tomorrow – the one they both have to be there for, which has sent his stomach in tangles since hearing that.

She shifts until she's lying directly on top of him, bodies line for line and matching angles, and traces little circles across his stomach. Her dark red nails barely scratch the skin, but it makes something lazily uncoil in him. Her scratches don't leave a mark, but when she approaches the area where Vince's thugs broke him, she lays her hand down for a moment, her palm over the skin. He looks up at her, and sees the matching bruise on her own stomach, the one where Vince broke _her. _

He isn't sure which one actually does it first, but a sigh ripples through the both of them. He likes feeling the sure weight of her, pressing him into this little space. It feels safe, and besides, they fit so naturally it's hard to remember how anything was ever any other way, with the cracks and empty spaces and crevices between them filled and fitting together.

"Can you scoot a little?" Drew asks. "I'm gonna flip the pillow."

She laughs. "Seriously, Prima Donna?"

"What?" he laughs back, and pushes her off gently, flipping the pillow over and fluffing it back up.

"See?" he says as they both lay back down. "Nice and cool."

"You're more comfy than a pillow," she murmurs. "Just quit moving or I'll smack you."

He laughs, and feels it move through the both of them. "Yes, _ma'am._"

The house fell asleep early tonight. They'd been watching a _Game of Thrones_ marathon in the bonus room with Adam when his brother went out like a light. Adam falls asleep so early on the pain meds nowadays, so once he conked out Drew muted the TV and it was just the two of them in the dimness of the bonus room, with only the silent light of the flashing television. When the show ended, he had switched the channel, and the first one he flipped to was the eleven o'clock news. There was more tragedy, more death, more war.

None of it had affected him. It was someone else's horror. He's got enough of his own.

He had looked over at Adam sleeping, his sling crossed over his chest, the good arm dangling off the touch and fingertips grazing the carpet, and hated the people on the news.

"One of these days," Bianca had said out of nowhere, as they saw a headline about a drug bust on the other side of town, "something's gonna happen in our alley."

Drew had closed his eyes. "What?"

"I keep thinking about it," she'd said.

There had been flashes of memories – the sound of his Converse against the wet pavement and the ache in his ribs and the way everything seemed to happen in slow motion, melting snow and cold wind and starless skies and the screams no one heard.

Drew didn't know how to answer that, or if he wanted to. He'd just rearranged Adam's arm so he wasn't leaning on his injured shoulder, tucked a blanket around his sleeping brother, then tiptoed with Bianca to his bedroom.

Looking at her now, he can remember the iron-soaked taste of terror in his mouth, the raw fear he'd had when he ran into the right street – directed there by who fucking knows what. To this day it makes Drew feel cold all over when he thinks about what would have happened had _something_ not told him to run into _that particular alley _at _that particular time_.

Her words hit him all over again – like another gut-punch – and he thinks how easily this entire scenario could have gone some other way.

He knows about her months with Vince, but the fact that he's going to be at the meeting with the lawyer, this time actually hearing about to hear the details of it, knowing what that animal had done to her…it's shaken him, a lot more than he's willing to realize. Not just because the horror of it makes his skin crawl, but because he still can't quite believe how willing Bianca was to sacrifice everything for him. He sees the shadowy bruise on her stomach, fading to a sick yellowish color, and swallows the bitter taste.

There's a big difference between knowing something happened and then hearing about it straight from the choir's mouth. Or however that saying goes.

Bianca shifts again, pushing closer against him. Her head turns sideways, curls fanned on his chest, and she lays her ear right over his heart. He slides his hand over hers, twining their fingers together. This is his favorite way to sit with her. At first it made him feel stupid and girly, but the need to feel macho felt even stupider when all he wanted to do was lay down and be with her, when everything was quiet.

He moves underneath her, then groans and stretches out. He needs to get those thoughts out of his head. They aren't allowed here.

"What?" she teases. "Diva needs another pillow?"

"Too fucking hot," he mumbles. "The A/C needs to turn on, already."

"Then get up and turn it on yourself."

He shakes his head. "Nah. Don't wanna get up."

She laughs and swats him. "Whiner."

"This heat sucks!" he groans, making it extra obnoxious to get a laugh out of her. She does laugh, and it makes him feel good.

"It's going to rain," Bianca says.

He tilts his head downward to look at her. "What?"

"Why it's so hot," she says. She brushes the strings of damp hair off her sweaty neck and piles it on top of her head. "It's gonna rain. It'll be like Noah's Ark out there when it does."

Drew makes a face. "Really?"

"Yeah." She sees him staring at her with that grin. "What?"

"Noah's Ark?"

Bianca rolls her eyes. "What about it?"

"Just you and a Bible reference" he says.

"Noah's Ark is, like, the oldest story ever," she says. "Everyone knows Noah's Ark."

"Yeah, but you making a Jesus reference?" he laughs. "I'm enjoying the funny in this. And wondering why you're not."

She smacks his stomach, making him groan. "Jesus isn't even in the Old Testament."

That makes him laugh harder. "This still isn't getting less funny."

She rolls her eyes. "Whatever. You're an asshole."

She lays back down on top of him, taking his hand again. "I went to church when I was a kid," she tells him. "With my grandma. She took me to confession with her once. I was maybe six. I was too young to go. Hadn't done all the classes or whatever. But my grandma brought me in with her and told me to tell the priest everything I did wrong."

"What did you say?" he asks.

Bianca smirks. "That I stole my cousin's Barbie. And then hit her when she tried to take it back."

Drew laughs. "Hardcore."

She shrugs. "Pre-req for the whole drug-dealing gig, I guess."

Drew wraps his arm more tightly around her. "What did he say?" he asks.

"The priest? He told me to say a Hail Mary and apologize to my cousin." She drops her voice and mimics a gruff tone. "And to not be led into temptation."

"But deliver us from evil," Drew finishes.

When she props herself up on her arm and stares at him, he grins. "What? I went to church. Once upon a time. Sunday school, anyway."

Bianca has to laugh. "Drew Torres, Choir Boy," she replies.

Drew shakes his head. "All I remember is that one prayer. The teachers made us memorize it. I just remember that one line."

"Well, more than me." She pushes herself up until their faces are inches away.

"Would you like to hear my confession?" she whispers.

Drew arches one eyebrow. "Depends," he drawls. He can feel the heat radiating off her skin, see the darting quicksilvers in her eyes as they focus on his. "What would you say?"

Somehow, it's easier to talk like this in the darkness. They're both in the No Man's Land of midnight and it's too hot outside to take a deep breath and they're both too tired to make the world feel clear or real. So it's okay to treat this dark room like a confessional.

"I would say," she whispers, "that I made a mess of my life. I had chances to do the right thing, and I kept fucking it all up. And now, I keep trying to fix things, but no matter how hard I try, I always screw them up again. I can't play the whole good girl act and pretend like I can make it right, because something always goes wrong."

She hangs her head, cheek pressed to his collarbone. "I always mess up," she murmurs.

"Don't tell yourself that," he says, lifting her face to his.

Her smile isn't very believable. "See, this is why I need you here," she says. "So you can tell me that I'm not fucking up the whole world."

"You are not fucking up the whole world," he says, swatting her arm lightly. "Stop saying that."

"What, should say a Hail Mary instead?"

"Nah," he says. "Something better."

He puts his mouth right against her ear. He can feel her shaking.

"I would tell you to tell yourself every day that you need to be easier on yourself," he whispers. "That you're trying as hard as you can to make things better. So, yeah, things don't go perfect. But you're trying. And you need to believe that it _will _get better. That _you_ deserve better. That you deserve _more_."

"That's a lot to remember," she replies. She sounds like she's trying to pretend her voice isn't shaking. "Not sure if I can say it all."

"Bianca," he says. She closes her eyes. Her name sounds heavy on his tongue, his voice harsh and almost angry-sounding. It causes a tightness in his chest that squeezes until it's hard to breathe.

"Open your eyes. Look at me."

She does.

He pulls her face inches from his own. "I know what happened. When I think about it – everything you went through, everything you've seen – it makes me proud of you. How strong you are." He cups her chin. "It makes me love you more."

Bianca looks at him for a moment. "How do you do that?" she whispers.

"Do what?"

She bends down and kisses him softly. "Every time I'm at my worse…you can always make me feel good."

"You ARE good," he says. "You need to tell yourself that. Every day."

It's a long silence before she tries to sound flippant. "For how long?"

He doesn't hesitate. "Until you believe it."

Bianca presses her face against Drew's neck. "Might take a while," she whispers.

His hands slide down the smooth, bare curve of her back, settling on her waist. He grips it tightly, and he can feel the bones shifting under his hold, his fingers imprinting in sweaty skin. It makes her shiver, and her arms come around his neck as he pulls her on top of him, forehead to forehead.

"Believe it, dummy."


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: Holy guacamole double bacon burger, Batman! It's finally an update!**

**So here's the deal: originally this was going to be the final chapter. But the day before I posted it I made the decision that it was just too freaking long to end it the way I wanted to, and the pacing would suck. So I will be posting the last chapter VERY shortly (no more month-long hiatuses, yay!) because it's basically already written, just with a few gaps to fill in. **

**And on that note – I am SO sorry for the long delays in between chapters. It's what happens when you move three states away in the middle of fic-writing and real-life responsibilities suddenly consume you. But I'm really glad to have found the time to start writing again, not to mention finally landing a job, which is a bit of a weight off my shoulders.**

**Finally, given the long breaks between updates, I need to do a massive shout-out to every lovely person out there who reads this and gives it your time. This story tests me a lot, but I love writing it, and I'm glad other people enjoy it as well. Thanks to anyone who STILL reads this, even with the delays. Also thanks to anyone who takes the time to reblog this story on Tumblr, write a review, or Favorite. I appreciate all the support I can get. I never really write long fics (this is about as long as I get) and trying to balance out juggling a ton of stuff going on a story and then tying it all together in the end is…new (hence the difficulty with pacing and my decision to split the last chapter in half). But for the most part, I have fun with it. And it helps when you really passionately ship a couple and want to keep their journey going =)**

**I make references in this chapter to the book _Of Mice and Men_ by John Steinbeck and a bunch of lines from previous Degrassi episodes. None of these references are mine, nor am I making any profit off of them. Ditto for Degrassi itself; I don't own it. Please, I am begging you not to sue me.**

**Twitter: AlbatrossTam14 (protected tweets)**

**Tumblr: welldeservedobscurity**

**I.**

Bianca's never lived anywhere but the city, but she can guess what the deep, rural country must look like. The pre-dawn park is empty of joggers, baby strollers, dog-walkers, and kiddie soccer leaguers; this early in the morning, it's just her and the sound of the soft earth under her feet. Under this lush, dark swirl of shadow and pine, she feels safe and separate from everything. When the sun hit its highest, it would be unbearable, but for now, it's soft, and when the light touches her skin it warms instead of burns.

She likes this; walking through the haze of a world just waking up, and seeing it all happen around her.

She fiddles with the toggles on Drew's hoodie, which is already starting to cling to her a little from the light sweat she's worked up. Still, she keeps walking, no destination in mind but not ready to make one just yet. She likes the freedom of just being able to get up and go, and not have to worry about anything. She can feel the ground underneath her feet, and not feel it shifting or giving way, like it sometimes does in those nightmares, the ones of the alley. The ground feels compact and cool, not like it's just waiting for a moment to open its jaws and swallow her into the darkness. And when she walks to meet the dawn, the weight of dreams like that and nights like those rolls off her shoulders like clouds, like they're nothing at all. It's so quiet out here; quiet inside and out.

She's been doing these morning walks for a few weeks now, once she figured out how to time Mrs. Torres leaving and switching off that stupid garage alarm that STILL creeps her the fuck out, so Bianca wouldn't accidentally wake up the entire house sneaking out. She's not even sure that sneaking out is the right term; it's not like when she was living with Juliana and would tiptoe out of the apartment to hang out at the Ravine or go to a party. She has nowhere to go on these morning sojourns, these dawn voyages. She just likes being out here, where there aren't any roads or people or alleys, walking under the waning moonlight and feeling the aches and sleeplessness drain out of her limbs.

Bianca has come to need these walks more and more, as the possibility of a trial looms closer. It's having her fate still so uncertain, after all these weeks of having a routine that's as close to normal as Bianca's ever had in her entire life. It's the utter panic she sometimes feels at night when she's in bed and can't sleep, whether she's alone in the guest room or feels Drew breathing beside her, and then she gets hit with the urge to run that's so strong it makes her gasp, like she's actually been sprinting.

Which is why she needs these so badly. They make the world weigh less heavily on her; they give her a sense of possibility, faint and glimmering as the weak glow of the sky before sunrise.

It's the total opposite of everything that Vince was.

Bianca tries to blink the thought away. It's not so easy, though; it's been the only thing on her mind the past few days, ever since she met with the lawyer about testifying. He briefed her about what she'd probably be asked, what she could and couldn't say as part of her answers, even how to dress. Bianca almost laughed when she was told to dress down, in dark colors and heavier fabrics, with simple jewelry and a clean hairstyle. Look respectable, calm, innocent.

Like she hadn't done anything to invite the trouble.

It'll be easy for Drew. No record, no reputation, and a penchant for Tommy Hilfiger. He'll look just like Mommy's perfect son.

Not so much for her. Bianca knows what kind of person she is, both then and now. Criminal. Druggie. Pothead. Bad news. Boiler Room Bianca. And no matter what Drew tries to tell her, she still doesn't believe that one good decision can make up for months and months and _years_ of bad. One good decision – that, technically, Drew made for her when he took Vince's gun out of her hands – doesn't erase a long history of being a fuck-up.

She remembers when Drew told her, "We can lie," and Bianca's original thought was _no fucking way._ Because lying would get them nowhere; lying would only come back to bite the both of them in the long run, because lying would end up hurting him and she couldn't live with herself then. And because she doesn't lie for lying's sake.

Then, Drew got to the part about claiming HE was the one who killed Anson. Her original response was _this will destroy us both._

She's used to that feeling; of being pulled apart. It's a familiar one that reminds her of the nights she would lock herself in the bathroom and let herself fall apart quietly on the cold, dirty tiles. In those moments of sheer weakness, she wasn't sure if she hated him or herself more.

She remembers how trapped she was, then. How empty she felt. How claustrophobic.

The sun is beginning to peek through the canopy of trees. She walks and stares at the free sky, which is open and clear and stares right back at her. She walks and digs her toes in the earth; she walks and breathes in the air that smells like honeysuckle. She walks and stares at the woods, at the tree branches click-clack-scratching against one another in the breeze and the clumps of wildflowers sprouting through the ground. She walks and looks up, seeing the way the trees push against the sky, forcing their way out of the shadows of the woodland floor and higher towards the light.

With Drew, it's like that. Instead of ripping her apart, he helps her put everything back together. And as much as he can be at times – and he can be a lot to handle – it can never completely drain her out. Because after he brings the storm, he brings the calm.

It's been so natural to her, the way things are. And she wonders how she made it without this before, without Drew and Adam and everything they have together. Bianca can't remember ever feeling like this. Like she had a place and a reason. Like…_belonging_.

Belonging feels like marathoning the _Scream _series and having Wii bowling marathons with Adam (which he likes because he can use his good hand, albeit shakily) and sharing a plate of stuffed cheesy bread when they all order pizza; it's trading MP3s with him and trying to bribe Eli's into giving them tickets to Dead Hand's concert in Fairview in November (no dice; his exact words were "Does Boy George have musical talent?"). It's washing their dad's company car and spraying each other with the hose from over the roof, then ambushing Drew from both sides.

It feels like Drew: her outline in his mattress cover and the sure weight of his hand draped across her waist while they sleep. It's her grabbing him by his t-shirt, her hand slipping into his to find warm, sweaty skin as their fingers slide and lock together. It's the way his mouth has memorized the shape of her shoulder blades in the dark, and the rough wetness of his tongue over her hipbones, brushing across her light as a whisper.

It's how he's there for her night after night, nightmare after nightmare, one breath after the next.

**II.**

The thing Drew remembers most about the day after Adam was shot was that his mom got a parking ticket. In her haste to get to the ER, she'd parked her car in an emergency vehicle only tow-away zone, and when she went out looking for her car after Adam got out of surgery, it was gone.

Eli's mom had been the one to drive her home, so she could shower and change her clothes. She'd showed up with Eli, freshly showered and dressed in something Drew was eternally grateful WASN'T black and covered in skulls (like he usually wore every time he as over hanging out with Adam) right around the time his dad took Bianca home, after Adam was out of surgery and knocked out on painkillers. Eli's mom been calm and way too sweet for Drew to believe she was Eli's mom, and he wondered if Weirdsworthy had been adopted because this lady was way nicer and less bizarre than he ever could have pictured Eli's mom being. But she'd also brought sandwiches for Drew and his family when she dropped Eli off. She pressed one into Drew's hand, a turkey club, before offering his mom a ride back home.

He remembers these things exactly because he remembers how he felt when they happened. Because they weren't bloody and frightening and like something out of one of his nightmares, but because they were things that happened every day.

People got parking tickets. People needed rides to and from places. People needed food, showers, fresh clothing.

It had been so weird to Drew that he still needed to eat, and he thinks he'd stared at that sandwich forever before finally unwrapping it and taking a bite. The hunger he felt was like an alien feeling, something he had no comprehension of, but as soon as he took the bite he realized how starving he was. The entire day had felt unreal to him, precisely because a few hours after learning his brother wasn't going to die and Bianca wasn't automatically going to jail, he also realized that he still needed to eat, needed to still use the bathroom, walk around and stretch out his muscles after sitting in a hard hospital chair for hours on end. He learned that his mother could get something as mundane as a parking ticket the day after her son could have died.

The world goes on, even if you don't think it can. The most boring shit imaginable happens between the most horrible, out-of-this-world, impossible shit.

It's something he's been thinking about more lately. With the whole possibility of a trial coming up, and ever since the lawyer mentioned that he and Bianca might have to testify against Vince in open court, it's getting harder to connect the two worlds together. The one where he still has to lie, fight, remember blood and fear and a war he never wanted any part of versus the one he has now, where Monday mornings mean slow, sleepy sex with Bianca as the dawn starts to crawl over the town, while the watercolor sky burns gold and he can pretend that he sees life like this every day.

The last time he felt this way, he tried to punch his way out of it. And it made things…sorta okay, even if it didn't work. But if being with Katie taught him anything, it's that that approach doesn't work. So instead, he figures he'll just go back to his tried-and-true method of dealing with shit he doesn't know what else to do with and doesn't really want to know, anyway: shoving it down somewhere and then sweeping it underneath a rug where there's a huge pile of dirt already hiding underneath.

Hey, it's worked before.

When he wakes up, the window's open, and he can smell the clear sky even with his eyes closed. Stretching his arms over his head, he opens his eyes and sees with disappointment an empty space beside him.

There is, however, a cold cup of coffee sitting on the bedside table, and the smell of them still on the sheets. He grins, remembering last night in glorious Technicolor detail, and then sees the door slide open and Bianca standing in the doorway. She's just out of the shower, curls pulled into a bun and towel wrapped around her body.

"Miss me?" she teases.

He tries to shrug. "Only a lot." He slides upward, back to the headboard, and wags his eyebrows at her. "Wanna come back to bed?"

She rolls her eyes. "Let me put a shirt on."

"Aww, come on," he protests, but she just smirks at him and pulls one of his button-downs over her. It doesn't hide the perfect shape of her ass or the curves of her chest, and when she slides back in next to him he's got his hands underneath the hem and feels her mouth soft on his jaw, lips warm on his skin. He pulls her underneath him, hovering just above her, burying his face in her neck as her arms wrap around his neck and pull him in tight.

It feels soft and perfect; he gets to bury himself in something else other than a dream he doesn't remember by doing something that always makes him forget everything else.

When they finish, they're wound around each other and surrounded by pillows, like kids in a fort.

"We need to do some stuff for your mom today," Bianca says out of nowhere.

He peels back the covers from around her shoulder and chucks Bianca on the chin, laying his palm along her jaw. "Can we please never bring her up here ever again, please?"

She rolls her eyes. "Well, we _do."_

He presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth, then another that brushes over her lips. "Shh. Just, no."

Bianca laughs, then pushes away from him, rebuttoning her shirt. "She wants us to clean out the garage. And she said you have to vacuum and dust the downstairs."

He groans. "The whole thing?"

"Quit being such a whiner," she teases.

She reaches for the bedside table, taking the cold coffee mug in her hands and curling her fingers around the porcelain.

"She also told me to remind you about that meeting with the lawyer on Thursday," she says quietly. "You need to find your dress pants so she can iron them."

He lays back down and sighs. "Terrific."

"Your mom said she'd take me shopping for a new dress when she gets home from work, so all the stuff she told us to do needs to be done before then."

"You and my mom having some girl time?" Drew can't help but smile at the image.

Bianca rolls her eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure it'll be just like that."

He almost laughs, but sees the way she's biting her lip, staring at the sheets. He takes the coffee mug out of her hand, setting it back on the bedside table, and pulls her back into the covers with him, resting her head on his shoulder.

"You still freaked over the whole lawyer thing?" he asks.

Bianca averts her eyes. "No."

He takes one hand and trails it down her arm, liking the way she shivers lightly when he touches her. "Is that yes spelled N-O?"

Bianca frowns. "No. It's N-O spelled Y-E-S."

"Hey," a voice suddenly calls. "Someone's a spelling bee champ!"

The doorknob twists as Adam yells, "Are you guys naked?". Before Drew can reply, he's poking his head in the doorway.

"Adam!" Drew snaps, and Bianca giggles as she finishes re-buttoning the shirt over her, covering her legs with the comforter. Although something tells him Adam is in no hurry to see her rush around. "What do you want?"

Adam throws something at him that lands in the center of his bed. It's shiny and wrapped in foil, and for a minute he thinks Adam threw him a condom before he realizes it's a Poptart still in its wrapper.

"Breakfast in bed?" he says. "Thought that was my job, bro."

"It's for eating on the go," Adam says. "PLEASE tell me you didn't forget about taking me to physio this morning."

He didn't, but that's a little beside the point. "Again?" Drew complains.

"Mom had that early meeting at work," Adam reminds him. "She asked you last night. Come on, man, you said at dinner you would take me."

Wondering how the hell Mom can have school board meetings when it's summer vacation, Drew says, "can't Eli take you or something?"

"Eli doesn't have a car anymore."

"I can take you," Bianca offers. Rolling her eyes at Drew, she slips out of bed and pulls on a pair of shorts. Drew watches Adam take in her legs appreciatively.

Drew unwraps his Poptart and takes a bite. "If it were up to me you'd walk," he says.

Adam smirks. "Chew with your mouth closed, Caveman."

"Aww, but that takes the fun out of ABC food!"

Bianca looks up from tying her shoes. "ABC food?"

"I think he's mixing up one gross food joke for another," Adam says. "Swallow, man. Your joke skills are seriously lame."

He arches his eyebrows suggestively. "Good thing I have plenty of other skills," he says.

Bianca rolls her eyes. "You did not just say that."

"Think he just did," Adam says drily.

"You know, Adam, feel free to get out any time you want."

"You are too disgusting to live," his brother calls behind him, and Bianca laughs as she follows Adam out.

He knows he should be getting up, too. But instead, leans back in bed, his head lazily turning to look out the window. He likes this feeling too much, because he likes how empty and floaty it makes him feel. He has no anchor to him, nothing to hold him down or remind him of how fucked up everything's been lately. He just closes his eyes and lays back down, smelling Bianca's shampoo on his pillow and hearing her chat with his brother upstairs, words he can't hear but sound comforting and remote, like they might not be real and he might be half-asleep and making them up, or like he's hearing them in a dream.

It's an ordinary morning, and he hasn't really begun it yet. It's an ordinary day, and things are simple. It's an ordinary day, and there's nothing wrong in this world.

It's an ordinary morning, and he can pretend like everything's okay, until it doesn't feel so much like pretending.

**III.**

He knows how she takes her coffee, and has a cup prepared for her and sitting on the table when she comes downstairs. She made sure to dress just like the lawyer said – Mrs. Torres took her shopping, and now she has a dark blue cotton dress that covers her knees and her elbows, covers her chest and makes her look demure, almost sweet. Her curls are loose, and after making sure none of them were out of place she avoided looking at herself in any mirrors. She looks years younger and a light year of life experiences away from who she really is.

She hates the way her eyes look too big for her face, with her hair down like this. Like she's some deer in headlights; like she might actually be innocent of something instead of guilty of everything.

He's eating a piece of cinnamon toast when she comes down the stairs, and he looks good. Like, really good. Handsome in a suit and tie, everything neatly ironed by his mom the night before, his hair perfectly styled and his face fresh. On him, the too-starched perfection looks right, looks honest.

It really shouldn't surprise her that he looks as good as he does. This is who he actually is. She's the one who doesn't recognize herself.

She left her heels upstairs, wearing a pair of too-tight flats that pinch her toes. Mrs. Torres handed her a pair of her own low black pumps this morning and said, "They look about your size", but Bianca turned them down.

She has it all wrong. Bianca could never fill her shoes.

So she went for the flats instead. They're old and too tight, but at least that means she _can_ fill these.

He looks up at her, a small smile sliding across his face.

"You look nice," he says.

She toys with the long hem of her dress, and suddenly her next thought is that she wants him to take it off of her. Put his hands on her, warm and sure and real. Wants to taste him. She knows he would taste the same, whether he was in a suit or in a sweaty basketball uniform, because he doesn't have to pretend like she does.

She wants him to make this feeling go away. To ruin her perfect hair and rumple her too-long dress, to smear her barely-there make-up, to feel him touching her everywhere the skin feel too rubbed raw and aching.

He hands her the steaming mug. It's the one she always drinks out of, if only to minimize her impact on the house overall. It's a dark blue mug with the name of Mr. Torres's firm on it, and she only took that one because they have about six more like it in the cabinet above the coffee maker. If she broke it, or someone else wanted to use it, they have others that can replace this one. No one would miss it if it suddenly disappeared.

Drew's mother sweeps into the kitchen, slipping her earrings on and grabbing her car keys off the hook by the wall. She's dressed in another one of those suits, and with her hair swept back and her make-up applied she looks like she belongs on _Law & Order_. Bianca shifts in her too-tight flats and feels a blister coming on the sole of one foot.

She tosses Drew the keys. "Could you move my car? We're taking Dad's and I'm blocking him in." He nods and heads out the garage door.

Mr. Torres follows his wife, much calmer and less rushed. He's coming with them for the first time this morning, but he seems as relaxed as if it were any other day.

Bianca has barely spent any time with him, even though she's been technically living with him. But the time she does spend with him makes her like him. He's a nice guy, she thinks. Drew looks a lot like him – she sees a lot of similarities in facial expressions, and she notices they have a lot of the same gestures and even the same tones. But he's much quieter than his son. Not quiet in a way that's off-putting, but quiet in a way that just makes her think he's used to sitting still and being the jetty as family arguments break around him, taking a backseat to his wife and just letting the chips fall where they may…and then picking up those chips after it's over and neatly reorganizing them.

He reminds Bianca a lot of Drew in this way, especially.

She feels kind of creepy comparing the two of them, but can't help notice how much they're alike when she reaches down to fix her shoe for the billionth time. Wiggling her foot back inside in the most comfortable position possible, she catches sight of Drew's parents out of the corner of her eye. They don't seem to realize she's sitting on the stairwell, because his father has his arm around his mother in a way that Bianca has never seen him do in front of the three of them. He just loops it around casually, and presses a kiss to her cheek, fiddling with one of her loose earrings. Bianca watches, slightly mesmerized, as Mrs. Torres reaches up with one hand, stills the earring, and then kisses him back, letting her head just rest there for a moment.

It's such a simple, automatic gesture that she imagines it's been done a billion times between them; something that started off as a joke, but then became so routine they don't even think about it anymore. She can't help but be reminded of the way Drew's hands just slip through her fingers, how his grasp tightens against hers when they're falling asleep. How he'll cup her chin and tilt it upwards towards his face, giving her a small smile that says, _everything's okay. _The way he'll slide his hands down her back, and the warm solid weight of them automatically makes her feel safe.

Mrs. Torres turns, and Bianca suddenly scrambles to be preoccupied in smoothing out her dress and adjusting the straps on her purse. Her face is burning, and she really, really hopes to God they don't think she's some massive creeper.

Mr. Torres smiles. "All set?" he says.

She nods, not really looking at him. "I guess," she mumbles, still feeling like she's blushing.

Mrs. Torres doesn't say anything to her as they walk out to the car. They drive in silence, too, and Bianca notices that Mr. Torres takes the hand his wife isn't using to drive and slides it in his own, holding it over the console. For a moment, she thinks Drew's mom is going to pull away, but then she just winds her fingers around his hand and holds it loosely in her own.

Drew sits beside her, staring out the window. He looks over at her and gives her this small smile, but it's too tight and has a strained edge to it that Bianca knows is from nerves. He's just as worried as she is, and he's doing a bad job of hiding it. Not that she's much better though – she feels like a wreck in Ann freaking Taylor – so she can't really say anything.

Bianca presses her cheek to the cold window glass, wishing she could ask Drew's mother to crack the windows just a tad. The closer to the lawyer's office they get, the more she starts remembering the smell, and needs to smell something else; the cool whip of air from the highway, the storm that's climbing over the city skyline, the honeysuckle and onion grass as they drive past the residential streets of the park.

There's suddenly a weight over her hand, and she looks down to see Drew's palm slipping over her own. It's slightly sweaty, but the fingers curl over her hand and give it a small squeeze, and it's reassuring in a way that his smile wasn't. She looks up at him, and squeezes his hand back, liking how her fist can fit in the palm of his hand.

They get there early, and the headache sets in before she even gets into the lobby. She tries to block it out, listening to the sharp click of Mrs. Torres's heels on the gleaming marble floor, and the soft thud of Mr. Torres walking in step with her, each of his equaling at least two of his wife's. Drew walks beside her, silent and looking down at his shoes.

"We're early," Mrs. Torres says abruptly as they reach the elevator.

"Do you want to get a cup of coffee?" Mr. Torres asks. "There's a Tim Horton's next door."

She shakes her head. "I'll just wait."

He looks over at Drew and Bianca. "Care to join me?" he asks.

Drew shakes his head. "I'm okay, thanks Dad."

Bianca doesn't, really, because her legs are shaky enough without caffeine, but the thought of sitting here in tense silence with Drew's mom for the next twenty minutes makes her head feel worse than it already does. "Sure," she says.

She follows him outside, and from the back she notices even more things about him that link him to his son. The way his shoulders look when he walks; the way his arms swing. It's like looking at Drew, walking away from her.

(The afternoon he dumped her,_ she_ was the one who walked away. Didn't want him to see her cry. Still, she could feel him like she could feel a storm touching down behind her.)

It might strike her as funny that he broke up with her BEFORE he was beaten up. Because she could understand him blaming her for that. She blamed herself for it, the times when she skimmed her hands over that bruise under the covers. But he dumped her right before, and now it's weird to her that it was like an omen, him breaking up with her and then getting attacked. Like the world telling her that no matter what she tried to do, she would always get the people she cared about hurt.

It's humid as hell out, the air thick with the promise of rain. The city streets wheeze salty air and burning asphalt. The buildings stand erect, the only things not wilting in this incredible heat. Bianca sees the jagged edges of them braced on either side of the street, like jetties standing against a boiling black sea. It's the hot, airless calm before the storm.

The bell at the door jingles, and the air hits her, like burnt toast and weak coffee that's been on the drip since 5 AM. Bianca looks around at the yuppie couples, douchey hipsters and their waifish American Apparel-styled girlfriends in ballet flats and skinny jeans and those ridiculous wool hats even though it's a million degrees outside. She shifts her dress around her waist again, smoothing out the imaginary wrinkles, and shifts uncomfortably in her too-tight shoes.

Mr. Torres comes back carrying two coffees, and hands her one of them. "You didn't need to do that," she says, shaking her head.

He shakes his own. "It's four bucks. Besides, you look tired."

She shrugs. "It's really okay."

"Bianca," he says. "It's just a coffee."

She looks down at her lap. "I know," she says. "But…I can't owe you guys anymore."

Mr. Torres frowns. He pulls up the seat at the table beside her, gently sliding the coffee towards her. After a moment, Bianca takes it and sips, feeling the warm burn down her aching throat.

"You know, Bianca," he says after a moment, "you don't 'owe' us anything."

"I do," she argues.

She stirs her coffee, staring into the swirling liquid.

"Every time I get near your family, someone gets hurt," she blurts out. "Someone I care about. And I can't…I _hate_ that it keeps happening. I can't be around your family anymore." Her eyes trail towards the window. "Because I care about them too much."

Mr. Torres is looking at her, and there's something in his eyes that looks so painfully _Drew _that it makes her feel embarrassed.

"I'm sorry," she mutters. She tries to gather herself, trying to figure out how to run back to the lawyer's office without ruining her clothes. "I'll just…"

"Wait, Bianca," he says. "Hold on a second, okay? Just hold on."

She freezes, still half-crouched over the table. A runner's crouch. A position to bolt, if needed. Which, all things considered, she probably should done before she turned her back to Drew the day it snowed in April, before it was stained with his blood and before he was ever stained with Adam's.

"We all know what you did for our family," his dad says. "And my wife…even though she doesn't show it, she's grateful. She knows everything you did."

_That's the problem_, Bianca wants to say.

"Drew's told us over and over again," Mr. Torres continues. "He knows you're a good person. And I believe him."

_I'll never doubt you again._

_We'll find a way._

_Believe it, dummy._

She manages to look into them, for a moment at least. "Thank you," she whispers.

He smiles. "You never need to worry about owing us," he says.

She nods, feeling oddly out of breath. Even though she isn't running. Didn't have to.

Drew's dad takes a sip of his coffee, then makes a face and reaches for one of the sugar packets. "So, you relaxed at all?" he asks, stirring in the Sweet n' Low.

Bianca considers lying, or trying to be polite, keep up a sense of decorum. She doesn't. "No."

He doesn't seem disappointed in her. If anything, he smiles a little. "You sounded like you were."

"I did," she says. "For a second. And that was nice…you know, before the mind-numbing terror set in again."

Mr. Torres laughs. That, Bianca notes, is definitely _not_ like his son. Drew's laugh is a weirdly pitched giggle, like an out-of-tune piano, and when he starts he usually can't stop until he's nearly hiccupping for breath. His father's laugh is much deeper and vibrant, and there's something reassuring in it that makes her feel better just by hearing it.

"Don't be afraid," he reassures. "I know the guy looks like a shark, but I've known Hector for years. He's a friend before he's a scumbag lawyer." He grins at his own joke.

Bianca lets herself do the same. "I feel like any minute, he's going to start yelling at me and pointing this finger in my face, telling me I did it."

"Nah," Mr. Torres reassures. "That's only on bad cop shows. In real life, we'd look pretty ridiculous doing that."

They both laugh. They finish their coffees in a much easier silence, and then head back to the office, where Drew is playing a game on his iPhone and his mother sits in the same position as when they left, swinging her foot and tapping her fingers on her knee.

"Feel any better?" Drew whispers to her when she sits beside him.

She shrugs.

The door to the office swings open, making them both jump and try to hide it. The lawyer greets Drew's dad by using his first name, and then invites the rest of them inside

They take their seats, the chairs so close together that her knees can't help but brush Drew's. She looks down at her lap, folds her hands, and tries not to let them shake. Drew seems collected, but she can see the way his jaw's clenched that he's fighting his own nerves, too.

The lawyer looks at them both from behind his desk. "So," he says lightly. "We finally have everybody here."

Drew's mom doesn't waste any time. "We need to know about how to keep them off the stand."

The lawyer shrugs. "I know we discussed that option last time," he says, "but now I'm not sure we could work out a deal any other way."

"You said there might be a way," Bianca accuses.

"And I'm sorry," he replies. "But I don't think there is. There are two major witnesses to the crimes Mr. Bell is being accused of, and without their words, we don't have much of a case for most of the crimes he's been accused of. The drug charges I can make stick, but not for much else. The domestic battery, the aggravated assault, the prostitution…"

"Prostitution?" Drew exclaims.

Bianca's insides turn cold. Drew's eyes slide to her, wide with disbelief. She stares at her lap.

"I can make a case for them," the lawyer continues. She barely hears his words, trying to ignore the shock of Drew's expression. "But it would make a stronger case if we had their statements."

"You already have their statements," Mrs. Torres argues. "Each of them gave their depositions. Why can't you just use those?"

"Because it might look as if they have something to hide," the lawyer says.

Bianca doesn't dare look at Drew.

"And then there's the discrepancy in the stories," he goes on. Drew stops staring at her and turns, his face white and blank.

"What discrepancy?" Mrs. Torres snaps.

The lawyer shifts through some papers. "The initial coroner's report on Mr. West's death says that he died from a head injury on the back of his skull. There was initially some question about how your son's story could have matched up with what ended up killing him."

_Killing him_. Her stomach churns, rebelling against the coffee. She tries not to think of what she did in such stark terms, but really, what else did she do. No escaping the truth.

Except they kind of did.

Bianca doesn't dare look at Drew.

"I thought you said that I was okay on that," he says, and she prays it's only her own fear that's making his voice sound like it's wobbling.

"My son was cleared of those charges," Mrs. Torres says at the same time.

"I know that," he says. "I'm just saying…you can bet Mr. Bell's lawyer is going to be all over that discrepancy, and it's going to hurt the credibility of our witnesses."

"Which is why we want them OFF the stand," Mrs. Torres growls.

She knows Drew is watching her, his face tight and pale. She slides her sweaty hands under her knees. If she looks at him she'll throw up. Or he will, by the look of it.

"Hector," Mr. Torres cuts in over his wife. "Look, we came to YOU, specifically, because we knew you would see us as more than just clients. You know us. You know my family. You know we can't watch them go through this anymore. Is there _anything_ you can do?"

The lawyer looks at the four of them, how angry and worried but mostly just how extremely tired they all look. He sighs.

"I'll see what I can do," he says.

**IV.**

The two of them walk in silence out to the car. Drew's parents are staying for a few minutes longer to argue some more, but Bianca's heard enough. And, judging by Drew's stiff silence, so did he.

"Well," he says, after a minute, "that wasn't the worst thing ever."

She closes her eyes and sighs. A headache is blooming in her temples. "By worst thing ever, you mean it was horrible."

He shrugs. "Just trying to lighten the mood. We've been through worse."

They have, but that's not the point. She notices he doesn't quite look her in the eyes.

"Well, you're doing a shitty job," she snaps.

He glares at her. "Okay, fine. I'll be quiet."

She steps ahead of him, ignoring the weight of his stare. Trying to ignore what he knows now.

When she gets to the car, she leans against the door, her face pressed to the window. The cool glass feels good against her throbbing head. God, she's just so fucking exhausted. She lets her eyes close, head throbbing, when feels Drew's hand gently settle on her shoulder.

Bianca freezes as his hands slide along the line of her shoulder blades, settling at the nape of her neck. He brushes the curls off the skin, and her breath catches when he leans forward against her, pressing her body against the car and kissing the back of her shoulder.

She closes her eyes, not caring if his mother storms out and yells at the both of them for this, or kills them on the spot. Heat pools in her stomach, and she sighs against the car frame, all the tension knotted in her body draining out of her until she feels like she'll sink into the cracked asphalt beneath her.

When he takes his hand off her, she lets out a long, slow breath. Her body feels loose and free, like she just jumped into a cold pool.

There's a clicking sound of heels coming toward them, and Bianca tries to stand up straight when she hears Mrs. Torres digging through her bag for her car keys.

"Do you guys want lunch?"Mr. Torres calls as he follows his wife to the car. "The mall's only a few blocks over. We could stop at the food court."

"Yeah, that sounds good," Drew tells his dad. He doesn't completely look at her when he asks, "You too, Bee?"

She nods. "Yeah," she says. Her voice sounds distant. She gathers her loose curls into a ponytail, her hand stopping a moment to brush the part of her that Drew had been kissing a moment ago. It still feels warm with his fading touch, but she wonders if that might just be her imagination.

**V.**

It's too cold.

Which is weird to him at first, because in his dream he was on goddamn _fire._ He opens his eyes, and hears the A/C roaring overhead. There's a wadded up pile of clothes in the corner, as well as a puddle of covers. And, after a moment, he feels a palm pressed flat against his chest.

"Geez, you're hard to wake up," she tells him. She sounds annoyed, but when his vision stops blurring he catches a sliver of her face, the raw and clear worry, and finds it hard to catch his breath. He hasn't seen her look that worried since a knock to the ribcage was her expectation, pain her constant.

He tries to sit up against the headboard, propping himself up on his elbows, but his arms buckle and he just lies on the mattress, sweating and breaking out in chills. He reaches for the glass of water beside his bed, and curses slightly the swimming feeling he has as he gropes in the darkness. He'd been swiping some of his mom's sleeping pills for a few weeks now, just enough for her to not notice and him to get through the night, but apparently he's building up a fucking tolerance or something and needs to figure out how to up the dose without his stupid ass accidentally ODing.

Bianca's hand is still lying on his stomach; it's heaving up and down as he tries to gasp for something like a nice, even breath, and he watches her hand rise and fall, rise and fall, like something riding out a rough tide.

"I'm okay," he rasps. "Headache."

To his relief, now Bianca actually _does_ look annoyed. "They don't give you aspirin in Hell?"

"Just need a minute," he said. "Or a week."

He tries for a smile with that last one, but Bianca's face doesn't change. It's still better than that kind of fear on her face, though, so he'll go with it.

She rakes her other hand through her hair and rolls her eyes.

Drew wonders for a moment if he should put some clothes on. He gets up and walks to where he tossed his shirt and boxers, feeling awkward for some reason, and slips them both back on before climbing back into bed, wrapping the comforter around him. The coldness of the room is starting to sink into his bones. It reminds him too much of trying to shake off the aftershock of a bad dream he can't really remember but still wakes up from knowing he's smelling blood in the snow.

Which, all things considered, is better than dreaming you're on fire, but not much.

Bianca faces his backside as he climbs into bed. "Sure you're okay?"

He reaches over the end of the bed and pulls the covers back from where they kicked them away earlier. "Fine. Go to sleep."

He knows the tone pissed her off, because when she lies back down next to him he can feel the tension coming off her in waves. Her side of the bed seems to sink lower and lower with the weight of it.

Fuck. Now he managed to mess _this _up. Not that he wants to talk about it, because God knows he _really _fucking doesn't, but he doesn't want to go back to sleep angry and wake up to the sour aftermath.

She's still bent over on her side of the mattress, one rigid line of rock-solid resistance. He touches her shoulder and she shudders under it, thrumming under his hand from the pent-up frustration he feels, too.

"_You_ okay?"

Pulling the sheet tighter around her body, she curls into herself, away from him. "Whatever. I'm tired."

That's that, and Drew's just as tired as she is. Not just tired like the dark circles under her eyes, but tired like God, life is fucking exhausting these days.

When Drew wakes up the next morning, he flushes the rest of the swiped sleeping pills down the drain. He's sick of having the Alley Dream, and now that it seems like fire has been introduced, he's even less thrilled about the idea of going to sleep. Before it was the standard beating up and high-terror chase through the dark, deserted streets, but the past few nights he's actually been able to feel the flames, smell the smoke, hear his own screams as the fire licks him, getting closer and closer to eating him alive.

**VI.**

His brother's back on the bag the day after they meet with the lawyer. Adam hears him all night long, pounding away, fighting off some enemy that can never get him but he still fears anyway. Again and again and again, punch after punch, kick after grunt after gasping pause. Adam presses his face into his pillow and breathes hard.

He grabs his phone off of the nightstand and texts Bee: **R u hearing any of this?**

After a moment, she answers back: **Im asleep **

He replies: **Im trying to but Drew's been on that stupid bag for hours. What happened at the lawyers?**

There's no response to that question, and Adam can't figure out if it's because Bianca's deliberately ignoring him or if she just switched her phone off and fell back asleep. He closes his eyes again, but the frantic rhythm of Drew's punches makes his own heart speed up to match it.

The next morning, Adam awakens to the sadly familiar sight of Drew slumped over the breakfast table, and Bianca sitting across the table and a million miles away. Adam can HEAR the words between them in the air that he knows they're never going to say, and he wonders if he should still seriously consider his old idea of locking them in a room together and letting them just bang it out, already. Who knows what his brother will do about this whole mess he's quickly creating otherwise. Adam has been quickly realizing the past few weeks that the normal rules of drewpidity don't apply to Bianca. Or maybe they might apply twice as much; he hasn't really figured out that one yet.

Bianca brushes past Adam without a word. Drew doesn't say anything, either, just stares into his cereal.

"Dude," Adam says as he sits in her vacated chair. "You ever heard the saying, 'loudest silence ever'?"

Drew grunts. "That makes no sense."

"It's a metaphor."

"That also makes no sense."

Adam sighs. "It's what happens when two people aren't talking to one another and you can feel how tense it is. Like there are a billion words that need to be said between them, but nobody's talking."

Drew shifts tiredly. "What's your point?" he says.

"Every time you two are in the same room together, my head hurts from all the noise."

Drew tries for a smile. "Sure it's not some OTHER type of noise?"

"You are disgusting," Adam automatically intones. "And that's not the point. What's up with you and her?"

"Just leave it," Drew says wearily.

"I'm just trying to help!" Adam says.

"Well, you're not," Drew snaps. "So please, just leave it."

Adam shakes his head. "You guys, I swear, getting you to talk to each other is like the freaking Jaws of Life! She'll listen to you. Just talk to her. Open your mouth. Make words come out. It will happen, I promise. Unless you do something else that's stupid and fuck it all up again."He slaps his brother on the shoulder. "Man up!"

Drew doesn't look at him, just stares out the window. Adam turns briefly, watching him, and figures he'd have better luck pulling teeth or getting a dog to meow than getting anything meaningful from trying to talk to his brother. He knows Drew well enough to know that if he won't talk, he won't talk.

Adam wonders how hard it would be to take down the punching bag.

**VII.**

It's not something Drew means to do. But he learned, after years of figuring out how to sneak out of the house without Mom and Dad knowing, that if you press the little grey button on the side of the alarm system, the blinking red light that makes the alarm go off will turn to a much more reassuring green, and then it will allow him to open the door without setting off any bells.

The first time he decides to run, it's sheer dumb luck. It was like the thing was calling to him, and without a second guess he just hit the button and held his breath as he slid the kitchen door open. When nothing happened, he breathed a sigh of relief, but found he was too scared to go any farther than the porch steps before turning tail and running back into the house, giddy and terrified with the thrill of momentary escape.

Escape from what, he doesn't ask. He wouldn't think to, but if he did, fuck if he knew. Not like he was the smart one.

The next two times he escapes from the house, it's planned ahead of time. It's dangerous, this rush, this running. This…_freedom._ The sky is endless.

He checks himself in the bathroom the next morning, tugging his shirt off and staring at his reflection. The bruises have all but faded.

**VIII.**

Bianca knows she's sort of been slacking off in English lately, but she's pretty sure she remembers what a _juxtaposition _is. It's when you compare two things that are opposite in some way, but also alike – putting the contrasts side by side so you can understand what the story's really about.

She vaguely remembers having to write a paper about it for Dawes last quarter, and how it related to the characters of _Of Mice and Men_. Which, of course, she hadn't read until the day before the paper was due, because hey, she'd been a little busy keeping her's and Drew's asses alive by selling drugs and playing the dutiful girlfriend and all that shit. But by the time the due date was one day away she was failing English and Dawes told her that if she didn't make at least a C on this paper she'd have to go to summer school, and while it didn't thrill Bianca to hear that, it did give her some perverse joy to know that she had something else to occupy her time with other than Vince. So she texted him and told him she had to stay late, then turned her phone on silent (she never dared turn it off, not when Vince was trying to get a hold of her) and stayed in the school library until the librarian kicked her out at eight.

By then she'd finished the book, and kind of wished she hadn't, because God, was it ever fucking _depressing._ Two guys, one right off the short bus and the other too desperate to dump the guy and find someone a little less prone to idiocy, stuck in this dying dust bowl world trying to keep what little they have from blowing away. And all the while they keep trying to tell themselves that things will get better, even though Smart Guy knows that things never really will; you can tell he's just trying to fool himself, because he knows that no matter how hard they try to make things better, life will always just get fucked up again.

Besides, Bianca remembers, he'd been lonely enough to realize that he would never be able to fit in and find a place; not really. He wasn't going to be able to belong anywhere. He didn't have a fucking home. Not on the ranch, not with his short bus friend, not with anyone.

That was enough to ruin your day, but then you get to the ending itself, and fuck if that doesn't want to make you give up on life in general. Listening to the big dopey guy talk about how life's gonna get better, how things are gonna be good in the future, talking this big game about a time the two of them aren't ever gonna have, and his friend just shoots him in the back of the head. Just cuts him off in the middle of talking about that dream.

And all of that was because the big idiot just got messed in something he had no control over. He just made a mistake and it wrecked his whole life. And his friend, he killed him to save him from something worse. Because at that point, it was all he could do. All because the two of them got into something they never wanted to be a part of.

She remembers writing the paper, comparing the reality versus the fantasy of the American dream. _Juxtaposing._ And surprising Dawes enough to keep her ass out of summer school. But mostly, she just remembers that fucking depressing-as-shit ending.

It's been coming back to her for some reason the past few days, watching Drew. The whole idea of _juxtaposition_. And thinking how of course it would make sense that just when she starts feeling like she can deal, _he's_ the one who starts falling apart. Or is that irony? She's not sure if she's right about either of them. She probably shouldn't have skipped so many English classes.

She knows that he's been dealing with the same stuff as her, just acting like it doesn't matter to him. Emotions to him are like messages in a bottle; below the surface, but you never get to read them until you break it wide open, and at that point all you have is a mess of broken glass and bloody wounds. It's not like he's doing a fantastic job of it, but he still tries – taking care of everyone and holding them all together in relatively normal shape, taking everything this life thrust on him. He handles this new identity like he handles a new day. Drew takes this responsibility seriously, as if taking care of their demons can exorcise his own.

He never _was _the smart brother.

But because that's true, he's still trying to keep up that "Me Drew, Me Throw Big Rock" routine; according to Adam, he's been at the bag nearly every night he's not with her. And even being with him has changed: they had weird, jumpy sex the other night, tense and edgy and with a desperation that didn't taste right to Bianca. It had felt like they'd been trying to jump out of their bones instead of jump each other's. When they were done, Drew was fidgety beside her all night long, although he passed through the night without another nightmare and so did she.

Still, it doesn't change that he's trying to pretend things are better than they actually are, or that they _can_ be better. He's been getting less sleep and more bruised knuckles, the mark of reality versus fantasy. _Juxtaposing._

He's been out all day (training with Owen, which is his way of avoiding her) and now she sees him for the first time since breakfast, stretched out on the lawn chair underneath the awning in the backyard. Above them, the sky is bloody with a sun losing its battle with the oncoming night.

She walks over and grabs one of the chairs, dragging it beside him. "You look like you got run over," she says.

Drew tosses his forearm over his eyes. "Gearing up for football season. QB1 calls. Owen says hi, by the way."

She rolls her eyes. "I'm sure that's all he said." Owen isn't exactly known for being discreet. Or clever, for that matter.

Drew presses his palms over his closed eyes.

"Well," she says, "it still looks like he ran you over."

He grunts. "Training hard."

She nods, not knowing what he's really saying anymore. Or what they're talking about.

Finally, she just says it. "You gonna talk about it?"

Drew doesn't respond, just shifts farther away as the sunlight inches behind the shadowy dogwoods.

"What," she says, irked. "Just gonna ignore me?"

"There's nothing to talk about," he says brusquely.

"If you say so," she replies.

He sits up, finally looking at her. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"The truth, Drew," she snaps. "That would be a nice place to start."

"I'm telling you the truth!" he says. "So back off."

"I've been backing off," she replies. "That's all I've done, is back off and try to let you figure things out. With us, with Katie…all of it."

She turns away from him, facing the setting sun. "But since you can't even be honest with me," she says, "maybe we should try something else."

"Like what?"

She shrugs one shoulder. "Maybe I could try moving back home for a while," she says slowly. "Just for a little bit. Both of us could use the sleep."

She sees the shock on his face.

"You can sleep here," Drew argues. "Really sleep." He inches closer to her, reaching out and grabbing her arm. "Look, I'm sorry, I'm just…we're just really stressed, and the whole lawyer thing, it's just exhausting."

He bends closer towards her, until she can smell the heat and dust of the day off his skin.

"Okay?" he asks. "You don't need to go."

Bianca looks up at him, the wild look of hurt on his face. "So what now?"

"Nothing," he says. "We move on. We deal."

"Right," she says drily. "And how's that working out for you?"

He scowls, turning away from her. Bianca sighs, counts to five, and then reaches over to him, taking his hand in her own.

"Talk to me," she says.

His back is still to her, and when she lets his hand go, he just shrugs one shoulder, heading back inside. This time, _he's_ the one walking away from _her_.

_Juxtaposition._

They don't speak for the rest of the night, and when it's time for her to go to sleep, she stays in her own room all night long. She can't figure out if it's the goddamn A/C that's turned down too low or the empty space beside her that's making her feel so cold.

**IX.**

One night he hears a clatter behind him as he's jogging through the empty park, and it makes his heart stop. He doesn't check to see if it's a homeless guy stumbling around, or a raccoon knocking over a garbage can, or even just a car backfiring somewhere. Just takes the fuck off, running full-tilt like since the days when he was afraid to walk home from school alone, when his friends would make jokes about it and he'd laugh it off when really he wanted to disappear. Or cry. Either prospect had been dangerously close at the time.

He's gasping and feels ready to throw up, but he doesn't slow down until he's sure the noise is far behind him, and until he feels like the shadows have stopped chasing him.

Who knows how much later, he jogs past the Degrassi schoolyard before he realizes where he is and what he's doing here.

"**You want me to _kill someone?"_**

Drew doubles over, gasping for breath and clutching his still-tender abdomen. A familiar adrenaline shoots through his body, and he has to lean against the chain-link fence to calm himself down, to fight the sudden urge to keep running past the school and just go further into the darkness until he loses himself in it.

It would be so easy to just disappear.

He stands there for a few moments, catching his breath. It takes him a long time to remind himself that no one is chasing him. That no one is even looking for him.

He turns around and goes back to the house, sneaking in through the back door. Adam fell asleep playing video games, and Drew holds his breath when he slides the bold shut, hoping his brother won't stir and start up with 20 Questions.

He's still asleep; as far as he knows, no one ever knew he was gone.

Drew rubs his hand over his closed eyes, and it feels like rubbing sandpaper over his skin. He gulps down water, and downs an aspirin with it. He took another one earlier, but the tension in his neck and shoulders just won't ease up. He sneaks upstairs to the kitchen, grabs himself a Poptart, taking one bite before pushing it aside and wrapping his head in his arms on the kitchen table.

Two months they had dated before the shit hit the fan. Two months. That's how long they'd been fooling around in the back of her car, or at the Ravine, or at her aunt's apartment when she was at work. And if you added in the days since he broke up with Katie, it wouldn't even equal three full months. Normally the length of a traditional Drew Torres relationship.

Neither of them had ever stopped. They'd always been drawn, been pulled; hell, even as far back as when he was dating Alli, there had always been a tug to her. A line. A string. A…whatever.

But he never thought about it any other way; how they gravitated towards each other, how it seemed so natural that she was living in his house, how seamlessly she seemed to blend into every day with him and Adam. How the little mundane things – sharing a pot of coffee, watching her brush her teeth from the bathroom doorway, loading the dishwasher after dinner and vacuuming his Mom's Suburban out with her at the gas station – made the extraordinary seem like it was supposed to happen; until waking up in bed with her wasn't something to define and catalog but like a part of everyday; natural. And he doesn't want to change it.

He wraps the rest of his Poptart into a napkin and wads the whole thing up, throwing it towards the trash can. It misses, bouncing off the rim and splattering on the ground. Drew swears, shoves his chair back clumsily, and slams the napkin into the can, for a moment fighting off the urge to pick the whole damn thing up and toss it through a window.

_Easy, Caveman_. Adam's voice from earlier pops into his head, and Drew breathes. The urge passes, but not without a surge of annoyance.

He's been trying so hard to deal with his own shit by shoving it all down and pushing it away, because he keeps trying to tell himself that everyone else needs him to be like that. He can't be the train wreck he was after Spring Break, not with Adam shot and Bianca in all this lawyer shit and his parents so stressed out and tired all the time.

Adam and Bianca's words to him wouldn't be the last comments on the subject, and if they were bothering him this much, he needed to get a grip on himself and remember _why _he needed to get a grip.

Shoving crap down was what he did best, anyway. It's what he's always done. Because people needed him to.

**X.**

Recently, Adam finds himself wishing for a time when things were simpler. When he didn't have to worry about what gender his driver's license would say he was. When running around without a top on wasn't just considered acceptable, but cute. When he could dress up in a boy's Halloween costume and no one questioned it.

When solving problems were as easy as blowing on your Nintendo.

Drew hauls himself out of bed around noon, his hair going every whichaway and everything weighing on his slumped, exhausted shoulders like a gloom Adam can feel himself. His brother is moody and distracted, and barely gives more than a grunt to him as he leans over the kitchen table.

He looks like he did just after the gang beating. It's too close for comfort.

"You look like hell," Adam says mildly. "Again."

Drew grunts at him, taking a sip of the coffee in front of him. Adam goes and sits directly across from Drew at the table, looking right into his face so his brother can't ignore him. Or at least, it takes more of an effort to.

Adam takes a sip of his own coffee, gearing up for the conversation ahead. "Are you gonna talk about it," he asks quietly, "or do I have to pull teeth again?"

Drew takes another sip of coffee. Adam can see his hand shaking. He sets the mug down harder than necessary and hot liquid sloshes out onto the table.

Adam snatches the cup away from him. That warrants a glare.

"What the hell?"

"I can ask the same from you," Adam says. "You haven't been freaking out this badly in a long time. Now all of a sudden you're back to nightmares and punching that damn bag every single night. What's wrong?"

Drew gives him a sullen look. "You don't know anything."

"News flash," Adam argues. "When you're sharing your bed with someone, it's kind of hard to hide the fact that you're not sleeping through the night. You're coming unglued, man, and both of us are worried."

Drew turns away from him, his jaw set in that line Adam knows so well and hates even more. "It's nothing, because you don't know what you're talking about.

"I've been Googling PTSD for months now," Adam says. "Ever since Vince's thugs got to you. And you know what the common denominator of all those searches is? That it's chronic. That means it can stick around for a long time."

"I know what chronic means," Drew snaps.

"So are you having bad flashbacks again? Sudden rage? Freaking out whenever someone slams the door?"

Drew slams his hand down on the table, and Adam jumps involuntarily.

"Would. You. Shut. Up." The words come out barely a snarl, and suddenly, Adam's reminded of the time Drew cornered him against the lockers, when it crossed his mind for a brief second that his brother might actually hit him.

Adam clears his throat and the memory away. "So nightmares?" he persists. "You're still having them?"

He holds his breath, half-convinced that Drew might just take a swing. But instead of getting angrier, Drew just puts his elbows on the table and buries his face in his hands.

"I just," he mumbles, then trails off.

He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. "This can't own me," Drew says.

He looks at Adam, and suddenly Drew looks so much older than Adam has ever seen. Like, whatever's holding him together these days was like Scotch tape at the fraying parts, restitched thread at the stretched seams, ABC gum where the levees had broken. Not much of anything. But it was just enough to sustain what was left of him.

"It won't," Drew says under his breath, after a moment.

Adam looks over at him. Drew's staring off into space, and Adam's sure he never meant to say that out loud.

"Which one is it?" Adam says, just as quietly.

Drew doesn't answer; just gets up and walks away.

**XI.**

Bianca has never been religious, but something has kept her from outright denying it. Maybe the hope that something else has to be out there than what you're stuck with.

Or not. Maybe it's just the fear that there's something _worse._

So around two in the morning, right when she thinks she ought to start putting away her cynicism and start praying her mistakes away (like that could ever happen), she decides instead to get out of bed and go for her nightly pacing ritual. It doesn't make her mistakes weigh any less, but it keeps her from thinking about stupid shit like prayers and grace and forgiveness, redemption. Whatever, they're all just words.

She doesn't know why she didn't fail immediately at trying to be better, though. Maybe because she was too afraid of letting down Drew's mom, not wanting to fail his parents after everything they'd done. Maybe because Drew had faith that she always would try. Maybe because she never would have really fired that gun. Or maybe, it's just because she really doesn't want to go to jail.

That's always been her, though. First instinct is self-preservation. But as it turns out, her self-sacrificial ones aren't too bad. One reason why with every other guy it was hooking up, and with Drew it was real.

Except for these days, when he turns away from her when she touches him. And he touches her, but it feels wrong.

The image of his hands on her melts into the image of when he said he was doing this for her, way back when, in the half-frozen schoolyard. Of how he turned away from her, how he didn't want her touch. When he told her he blamed her, and couldn't stop doing it.

Maybe that's when she stopped believing that anyone could ever forgive her for anything, or believe she was good. Least of all herself.

It's even colder downstairs than it is upstairs, and Bianca shivers. She'll never get used to the cold in this house.

Suddenly there's a flicker of light from the family room, and Bianca freezes. A dark head of hair turns to her, slightly blurry in the dimness, and suddenly Bianca isn't the only one who isn't sleeping tonight.

Mrs. Torres stares at her for a moment, and Bianca's stomach flips. She remembers the night before everything went to Hell, the night when Drew snuck her in the house past curfew and they made out on the couch until four in the morning, when his mom came down and caught them and gave Bianca the dirtiest look when she escorted her out the front door. _Whore_, it said, even though the woman didn't have to tell her that. She'd gotten that look enough times in her life to know what it meant.

"Something the matter?" Mrs. Torres asks.

It takes a moment for Bianca to register that Drew's mom might actually sound concerned.

"Couldn't sleep," she replies.

The woman stares at her for so long that Bianca wonders if she's reading her thoughts somehow.

"Are you hungry?" she says finally.

Bianca blinks.

Drew's mom gets up off the couch. She's wearing the same clothes she was wearing at dinner, and Bianca wonders how much she actually sleeps these days. Probably not much, considering the shadows under her eyes, Bianca suddenly realizes when Mrs. Torres steps out of the dimness of the family room and into the kitchen.

"Tomorrow's Leftover Night," his mom mumbles as she blinks against the light of the refrigerator. "Or, I guess that's really today. But still. Tons of stuff. Lasagna. Chicken. Cold pizza." She looks over at Bianca with something that might be a smile. "I always take pizza cold. It's the only way to eat it."

Bianca just stares at her.

"I like pizza," she says finally, feeling stupid.

Mrs. Torres nods. "Pizza it is, then."

She pulls out the foil-wrapped plate and hands it to Bianca, who takes it to the table. Mrs. Torres grabs two glasses of water. "Want ice?" she asks.

Bianca shakes her head. She starts to peel back the foil, then follows Drew's mom into the family room and takes a seat next to her on the couch, balancing the plate of cold pizza on the coffee table.

Mrs. Torres has some real estate reality show. It's one of the shows Juliana likes to watch, and for some reason that makes her curl her legs underneath her, leaning back into the couch cushions and listening to this young, fresh-faced couple talk about buying property in Montreal.

"My auntie likes this show," Bianca says. "Or _Property Virgins. _I can't remember which one."

"They're all pretty much the same," Mrs. Torres says with a shrug. "I only really like _House Hunters: International_. There was this one about buying a house in Prague. Really beautiful place. Made me want to quit my job and move there overnight."

"You'd have to learn to speak Prague-ish," Bianca says. A small smile can't help tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Mrs. Torres looks like she's fighting one of her own. "Think they speak Czech there. Or whatever they call it." She pauses." Czech-ish? Czech-er? Czech-an?"

Both of them actually laugh, and is this really happening?

Drew's mom takes a piece of pepperoni, and Bianca takes a cheese. They chew in silence, the television playing on very low so that she the voices are more like the rumble of the A/C than any distinguishable noise.

"I got off the phone with my husband after dinner," Mrs. Torres says suddenly. She's looking at the TV, talking _at_ Bianca instead of _to_.

Bianca freezes, staring at her lap. The pizza she just ate churns in her stomach.

"About the lawyer?" she whispers.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Drew's mother nod.

"Sort of." She clears her throat. "He was talking to the lawyer. And he's willing to try and work out a settlement out of court."

Bianca wraps one of her loose curls around her finger, tugging at it. "Meaning…"

"Meaning you and Drew don't need to testify," Mrs. Torres tells her. "You don't have to face that man in court. You never have to see him again. There's still going to be a verdict, but he thinks he can get it knocked down to community service. Probation, at most."

"Even with my record?" Her voice sounds very small and high.

Mrs. Torres shrugs one shoulder. "It's not doing us any favors," she mutters, "but…my husband knows."

She ducks her head and tucks some hair behind her ears.

"He's very grateful," she finishes.

Then she clears her throat, and in a much quieter voice, adds, "I'm very grateful."

Bianca looks back down at her hands wringing in her lap.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "About all of this."

She feels tears pulsing at the back of her throat, but swallows them down as hard as she can. She can't cry in front of this woman. She's so sick and tired of crying, feeling so torn open and stitched back together inside out.

"I know," Mrs. Torres says. "But…bridge, water…a lot of water…"

They sit there for a moment in the quiet, then Bianca picks up the plate and two empty cups.

"I'll clean up," she offers, and nearly trips over herself in her haste.

Drew's mother nods. She wipes her hair out of her eyes and sits up straight, and suddenly she's more like the Mrs. Torres that used to make Bianca want to slink away. She yawns, then adds, "Put the plates in the dishwasher."

Bianca loads the plates in the gleaming dishwasher, feeling an odd warmth spread in the pit of her stomach. She's addressing Bianca with the same tone like she does when she tells Drew to "don't talk back to me, just fold the laundry already" or Adam that "you need to put the trash out _every Thursday night_, how hard is that to remember!". Even in this impossible hour, she manages to hold onto the waspishness she addresses her own family with. And it makes Bianca feel better, weird as that is.

**Just a note: I know what juxtaposition is. I was trying to see the term through Bianca's eyes. Hopefully I didn't sound like a complete idiot trying to do so =p**


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: So…remember what I said about how it WOULDN'T take a month to post the last chapter? And that I only had a few more things to fill in before I could post it? **

**LIES. ALL LIES.**

**I really didn't mean for it to be a lie. It's just that now I'm working two jobs and I'm never home, and when I am, I'm half asleep because I'm tired all the time. Plus we're trying to find a new apartment so we can move out next month, and that's really stressful and time-consuming. Hence, another month-long hiatus. **

**Given the unreal amount of time it took to write this fic and the monstrously long waits in between updates, I owe a big hug to everyone who reads and reviews this. Thank you to everyone who has been reading this fic, reblogging it, and especially reviewing it. I appreciate every little bit of support I can get. After nearly two years of writing for Degrassi, you guys have kept me from giving up.I know my good friend musiksnob says the same thing to her readers, and she's absolutely right - for the writers who work very, very hard to put out fanfiction to the Degrassi fandom, it can get discouraging sometimes when there doesn't seem to be a lot of feedback or response, and while we all love to write and would be happy to just do it for ourselves, any encouragement we're given is tremendously helpful and keeps us wanting to write more, no matter uninspired we feel. So especially for the people who have stuck with this fic from the start (which was so long ago I don't even want to LOOK, oh dear) I love y'all. And I owe you cupcakes or something.  
**

**Special thanks to necklace890 who helped me brainstorm for this story & helped me work out a very unworkable outline, as well as encouraged me to keep writing when I was frustrated. She's the best. **

**Twitter: AlbatrossTam14 (protected tweets)**

**Tumblr: welldeservedobscurity**

**I don't own Degrassi, nor do I own the lyrics to Patsy Cline's "Walkin' After Midnight". I also don't own _The House on Mango Street_, but I thought I'd just give that a nod because it happens to be one of my favorite books ever.**

**Oh and PS – there will be an epilogue. And I PROMISE, this time, it WON'T take a bajillion months to post. I SWEAR this time, guys. I swear on everything that Dean Winchester holds dear...and that's a major thing to swear on! **

**Bonus points to the savvy fangirls (and possible fanboys) who get the _Supernatural_ reference (no, it's not the one in the author's note).**

**I.**

He looks up. Head thrown back, eyes blurred with slanting rain, stinging his bare back like silver needles. The water is January-cold, and it freezes his bones to glass under his burning skin.

The sweat running down his face mingles with the rainwater, and when it touches his lips it's sour and slick. It reminds him too much of the taste of blood in his mouth, and he spits onto the pavement, running harder against the wind, the water beating a war drumbeat against the city streets.

It hadn't been raining when he started off his nightly jog – and they'd become a nightly thing lately, now that Bianca spent every night of the past week and a half sleeping in her bed and not coming to his – but the sky had been promising it all day long. It broke around the same time he did, when the wind and the space beside him in the bed was too cold, so he kicked the covers off and laced up his sneakers.

He takes a step in a puddle, and suddenly his ankle sinks into two feet of frigid slush. His shoe fills with water that sloshes when he keeps running. Like every night, it doesn't matter where he's going. It only matters that he doesn't stop.

The cold's nice, in a way. He can think about the burn in his stomach, the chatter in his teeth, and just the force of putting one foot in front of the other. The water clears his head, rinsing away the fuzziness of sleepless nights and bad dreams.

_(Not that he'd admit to either of those)_

The harder he runs, the more he feels like…almost normal. He knows Adam's worried about him, and Bianca keep shooting him these looks whenever she thinks he's not looking, but he wishes he could just tell the both of them to screw off. Whatever he's dealing with, he can deal without them. They don't need to constantly get onto him about it; they all have enough to deal with right now instead of focusing on every little thing. Not while Bianca's still with the lawyers, and Adam's still in his sling.

So why are they so bent on dealing with his bullshit? What's a few nightmares in comparison to facing jail time, or getting fucking shot?

Nothing.

It's not worth it to worry. He can deal with his own shit on his own time. It's what he's always done, anyway.

The ground beneath his feet is slick with mud, and his shoes are like running through an ocean tide. The earth is like a giant sinkhole, and for a moment, he gets this weird, paranoid thought that the ground is just going to swallow him up, pulling him under. It's kind of surprising to him that the next step he takes doesn't make the ground fall through underneath him, that he can keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Water keeps sluicing down his back, and he keeps going.

**II.**

She hears him come home. There's a beat of the rain outside that reminds her of the drums she used to hear him play, the ones she danced to. She closes her eyes and remembers that afternoon in the band room, the clandestine drums, the steady pulse of his heart that matched her own as she slid her hand underneath his khaki uniform shirt, touching warm bare skin behind closed curtains.

Bianca stays flat against the couch, trying not to make a sound. She listens to Drew re-key the house alarm back on (she should probably learn that code; it would make her morning walks a lot easier if she didn't always have to worry about waking the whole house up and getting the cops over here) and trudge downstairs, hears the slosh and drip of his wet clothes as he heads to the basement.

She picks up her copy of _The House on Mango Street_ and thumbs to her marked page. They got their summer reading lists last week, and while the boys haven't taken theirs out of the mail basket, Bianca got her books yesterday at the mall with Adam. Drew isn't really talking to her, and there were only so many arcade hours she could log in before she got bored of Adam beating all the scrubs in vintage Mario.

It's kind of nice, in a way, to have something to do. Something other than housework; something that forces her to pay attention, to totally engage her mind, to keep her from dwelling on everything.

Bianca tries to read, but after she catches herself looking at the same sentence without reading it, she puts it back down on the coffee table and closes her eyes. Since when does she care about school, anyway? Before she used it as a way to get out of spending time with Vince, she was skipping to smoke pot at the Ravine, or getting drunk with Fitz in her car. She never cared about it before.

Even now, it's not like she has a better prospect of success at Degrassi. Her grades were always shit, but they really went to hell after Spring Break, although towards the end they started to pick up a little because she was hiding in the library to avoid Vince all the time. She did just well enough to avoid summer school, but her GPA isn't exactly great. And even if she were to pick up and really start trying now, seriously try to turn things around, she isn't sure it would make much of a difference.

Besides, who would she be trying to impress? Her aunt? Her parole officer? Universities?

University. Yeah, right. Like THAT has any part in her future.

Sometimes, she thinks about how it could. How she could work her ass off this year, really get her grades up, look into some local places. She doesn't want to be a scrub for the rest of her life, but it seems like now, she doesn't have a choice. Why would anyone help her pay for school? Why would any teacher give her a letter of recommendation? What would she put down on her application, anyway? _Semi-reformed pot dealer with a past of dating gangbangers and putting people I love in danger? Oh, and don't forget the part where I also killed a guy last spring?_

There are footsteps in the kitchen, and it startles her until she realizes they're too light to be Drew's. His mother stands at the coffee maker in her bathrobe, her hair pulled back into a bun. She looks…really pretty, Bianca realizes. Not softer or less intense, because she's still got that air around her, but just…pretty.

Mrs. Torres pours herself a cup of coffee, then pauses and turns around, facing her. Bianca freezes, still leaning over the back of the couch.

"Couldn't sleep?" his mother says. She stirs some creamer into her coffee, brushing loose hair behind her ears.

Bianca shakes her head. "The rain woke me up."

"Been so intense lately," she replies. "All this storming."

Bianca nods.

His mother takes a sip of her coffee, then says, "you don't have to sit in the dark, you know."

She heads upstairs, and when Bianca reaches over to switch on the lamp, she sees the empty mug on the counter, the coffee still left in the pot. It's become a routine lately, for the both of them.

**III.**

He's thumbing through his phone when he finds an old picture of him and Bee. It was taken not too long after they started dating, one of those awkwardly framed shots taken while he held his phone above his head and snapped a picture of the two of them where they're barely in the crooked frame. He's making a goofy face, his eyes wide and his lips pulled back to reveal a horsey expression, and Bianca's laughing in a way that he barely remembers.

It sends a weird chill through him, seeing that picture. Everything had been so different then. Back then, touching her had been a thrill, kissing her like a shock. They fooled around in the back of her car, and he'd barely been able to hold it together when she stripped out of her uniform shirt down to her bra and let him unsnap it with suddenly sweaty, unsteady fingers, fumbling the soft skin underneath that drove him crazy. She'd put her mouth on him, and it had been enough to send his entire body into overdrive, like he was exploding from the inside out.

He stares at the stupid face he's making in the picture. He's thinner and more worn now than he was then, and there aren't any fading bruises on his back and stomach. But what strikes him the most are his eyes, and how different they look from the ones he sees in the mirror these days. It's the way the Photo-Drew looks at him that makes him want to throw the phone against the wall and shatter the image.

At first all he does is lie there, drowning in his own sense of self-pity. Then he hauls himself up to the bathroom, and spends ten minutes underneath a burning spray that stings his skin but he doesn't bother to turn down. He just lets the steam engulf him like a warm, soft cloud.

When he steps out of the shower, putting on the same jeans and t-shirt he wore the day before, he sees Bianca sitting in the bonus room, legs crossed on the floor as she folds clothes over her arm and places them in a plastic laundry bin. Drew lingers in the doorway of his bedroom for a moment, just staring at her, at a loss to do anything else except watch her sit on his floor and fold laundry, both his and her own.

She pauses mid-fold, looking up and seeing him just staring. She stares back, and he shifts uncomfortably, feeling weirdly self-conscious at her look.

Her eyes take in the circles under his eyes, his messy wet hair. "You look terrible," she says without emotion.

He manages to straighten himself out. "Well, I feel like I could party like a rock star," he mumbles. He shakes his head out, droplets of water dripping down his forehead and onto the carpet at his feet.

Bianca just keeps staring, then turns back to her laundry. She's wearing one of his giant sweatshirts, and for some reason, it annoys him as much as it makes his stomach do this little flip. It makes her look much tinier, seeing her small body swallowed up by the giant fleece, and with her damp hair falling into her face, it's like she's trying to hide herself, stay as small as possible. She looks way more breakable than he knows she is.

Right after he gets that idea, he feels stupid for it. But he keeps studying her from the doorway, and even though Bianca acts like she's totally absorbed in folding his grey skinny jeans he can tell she's studying him just as hard. The sunlight peters in through the gauzy curtains behind their back door, falling onto the carpet in diamond shapes and catching beams of dust, making them glow as they spotlight the room, lining the walls with shifting shapes.

She looks up at him, loose hair in her face, and he looks down, embarrassed.

Bianca keeps looking at him like he's waiting him to say something. When he doesn't, she drapes one of her shirts over her arm and says, "You know you gotta pick up Adam from physio in an hour?"

He frowns. "Gee, thanks for the reminder, _Mom_."

Bianca rolls her eyes, sighing tiredly. "Whatever," she murmurs.

He looks down at his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets. His ears are burning stupidly, and when he steals a glance up at her, he sees that she's just sitting now, the laundry half-finished, staring at the pile of clothes with an unreadable look on her face.

"I TiVoed _The Descent_ for you," he says after a minute. He says this because he doesn't know what else to say. His arms hang at his sides, and he's very aware of how stupid they look, so he tries to shove them in his pockets. That only makes him feel more awkward and heavy, like he's suddenly taking up all the space in the room and he can't stop looking big and stupid.

Bianca smoothes out the wrinkles in a t-shirt of hers. "That movie is so bad," she says.

"True. But I thought you said some movies are so bad they're good."

A faint something that might have been a laugh shadows across her face. "True."

Another silence, and Drew stares at the carpet. He sneaks looks at Bianca, picking threads out of one of his t-shirts.

"Bianca," he says, and she looks up to meet him, and for a moment all they do is stare at each other, waiting for the other to speak, before there's a bang on the door upstairs and the sound of footsteps rushing down the stairs.

Adam clatters down the stairs, holding a letter in his hands.

"Do you know what this is?" he says. Before either of them can answer, he cheers, "the school sent out an update. No more uniforms!"

Adam's face erupts into a smile, one that tugs at the corners of Drew's own mouth. "Seriously?"

Adam nods. "And you know what that means?" He throws the paper in the air, tossing his hands up. "It means return of the beanie!"

"Not if I have anything to say about it," his mother replies, coming down the stairs with a basket of towels.

Adam whirls around. "Come on, Mom!"

"I said no, Adam," she says. "Forget it."

Adam scowls, and launches into another diatribe with his mother. She snaps back, irritated, and Drew catches Bianca's eye. She's biting her lip, and when she looks at him, she grins, and he lets himself smile back.

**IV.**

They aren't really talking, but they're not really _not_ talking, either. There's still an uneasiness between them that neither one seems ready to break.

They do house work for Mrs. Torres, and play Wii with Adam, and they even have a cookout with K.C, Dave, Clare, and Eli one night, Drew eagerly showing off the new steak marinade he made. It reminds Bianca a little of when she somehow ended up living with them after prom – the politeness driving them both a little crazy, the way they swooped and darted and danced around each other like birds.

One night he leaves her the last of the potato wedges at dinner, and then the next night there's a pink iPod case on her bed when she gets out of the shower. She shakes her head, wondering how his mind works when his way of apologizing is offering her a sparkly, blinged-out piece of plastic.

She backtracks and reminds herself that it's not like he has something to apologize for. It's not like they're really fighting, either.

Still. She sits across from him at the dinner table instead of next to him, and she doesn't say anything to him except to _pass the salt, please_ or _it's your turn to take out the garbage. _It's as if, after everything, they're right back to where they started at the beginning of the summer. She can't decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but when she falls asleep with an empty space beside her and the cold rattling through the empty chamber of her faceless guest room, she shivers and wishes the both of them weren't so damn stubborn.

**V.**

The storm is still raging, but even from the car Adam can see the crowd inside Tim Horton's. _Like cockroaches, _he thinks. _It doesn't matter if the freaking zombie apocalypse happens, it will never keep people away from their coffee._

Bianca pulls around to the drive-thru and rolls down the window, sleet pelting them in the face. "Cocoa or cider?" she asks.

"Hot chocolate," he says. "The cider's too sour."

Absentmindedly, he rubs his shoulder. He's not sure where he heard it, but he thinks he was told that when it rains, your body goes out of whack. Broken bones start to ache. Arthritis flares up. Whatever's wrong with you starts to seep back into your bones, like the damp and the cold, and causes you to ache even if there's nothing wrong. His shoulder's been aching since the rain picked up last night, so there might be something to that, although it could be one of those things. Like, if you give someone a non-alcoholic beer and don't tell them it's non-alcoholic, they'll start acting like they're drunk. Or something like that.

Bianca's apparently arguing with the guy behind the talk-box. He's trying to get her to upgrade her coffee to a latte-grande-cappuccino-something-or-other, and Bianca's getting more aggravated with him. Finally, she just snaps, "Listen, all I want is a damn cup of coffee. Got it, Hipster? Great. Thanks."

There's silence on the other end as Adam chuckles, then the box resentfully crackles, "7.67 at the window".

Bianca rolls up the window as they inch forward, wiping her wet hands on the leg of her sweat pants. "Freaking rain," she mumbles.

Adam fiddles with the air vent on his side. Bianca's car is so old that the heating and A/C only work half the time, and when they do work, occasionally they'll blast heat when it's a billion degrees outside and cool air in the frigid wind. Right now, Bianca's trying to de-fog her already-dirty windshield. Adam wonders how this car can still look like a dirty hunk of crap, considering it's been pouring for four days straight, and logic would say the car should be sparkling new by now.

Bianca hands him his cup of hot chocolate, and Adam catches a glimpse of the barista who took their orders. He's got gages in both ears, as well as a nose ring and dermal piercings poking out from underneath his black v-neck. He scowls at them as he hands Bianca her own coffee and change, and mutters something neither of them can hear as they drive off.

"You know he probably spit in your drink," Adam tells her.

Bianca grabs his cup. "Which is why I'm taking yours."

"Hey!" he argues, but she holds it out of his grasp. "I paid for that!"

"And I'm driving you to physio at eight AM on a Saturday," she says, and takes a sip. "Eww. White chocolate cocoa's a lot grosser than it sounds."

He grins, taking it back. "Serves you right."

She makes a face at him, then switches on the radio, fiddling with the dials and settling on a song that makes Adam feel like he ought to be running from something.

"I thought about moving out," Bianca says, offhand, as the song fades into the bass line of another.

Adam turns to her. "Move out? Like, back in with your aunt? Why?"

Bianca shrugs. "I dunno. Seems like I should."

"Is this because of you guys?" Adam asks. He knows things have been extra-icy between them the past few days, though Drew's not exactly talking to him and he hasn't asked Bianca yet since she's made herself scarce from the both of them. He kind of wants to strangle both of them for being stupid, but right now he's more worried about Drew acting like he did after the gang attack, and how to stop him from spiraling out of control again. He thought having Bianca around might be the best thing for Drew, and keep the both of them happy and sane after everything, but at this point, who knows.

Bianca shrugs one shoulder but doesn't look at him. "It's because. I just think I should. It's not like you guys invited me to move in with you. I just sort of invited myself."

"And my family's okay with it," Adam argues.

"Maybe I just wanna go home," Bianca says, this time sparing him a frown. "It might make things more normal, not hanging around you guys all the time."

"Is that why you want to go home all of a sudden?" he asks. When Bianca doesn't answer, he says, "Do you really want to leave?"

It hadn't occurred to Adam that he might miss her. They'll be in school together and still see a lot of one another, and it's not like they're going to just stop being hanging out. Well, unless the whole thing with Drew goes totally south, but even then, Adam wouldn't just stop being friends with Bee altogether.

But it never occurred to him that he would really miss having her around all the time. It made things strange, sure, and not a little crazy. But it also made things a little easier.

Bianca does that vague one-shoulder thing, not an answer but not a not-answer, either. She must have learned that from Drew, he thinks. Adam watches her tap her freshly manicured fingers against the steering wheel to the beat of the drum, wearing a pair of his brother' sweatpants bunched up at the waist with a hair tie to keep them from slipping down her small waist.

"What did he do this time?"

Bianca looks over at him, eyebrows quirked. "Why do you think it's something he did?"

Adam stares at her. "Have you met the guy?" Whoever said that Adam was the dysfunctional brother in the Torres family has never been around Drew when he thinks he's doing a good job of being functional.

She rolls her eyes. "He didn't do anything."

It doesn't seem right, to just have her leave like this. Not with Drew acting like Hell is crawling under his skin, having nightmares, wasting away in front of their eyes and totally denying that everything is more fucked up than it possibly ever has been.

"So you're really leaving us?" he asks, and ignores the tone he didn't mean to use.

After a moment, Bianca sighs. "Guess. I don't know. I haven't decided yet."

When they get home, there's nobody there. His parents are at work, and from the looks of it, Drew took the car and left to go somewhere – either the gym, or to a football pre-training session with Owen and K.C., or Dave's house to play video games.

It's still raining when they get back, and the rain makes the bonus room lights seem dimmer and more heavy, like they're in a cave. The storm outside and the darkness inside makes him feel a chill, so he wraps himself in a blanket and Bianca pulls on one of Drew's sweatshirts that nearly hangs to her knees. They sit on the couch together, a bag of Doritos between them, as they flip through the channels and settle on some gratuitously terrible SyFy channel movie, something about a haunted lake populated by were-zombie-gator-things. To Adam, they look like mutated Ariels, like _The Little Mermaid_ and _The Walking Dead_ had a crossover episode.

It's surprising when he wakes up alone, unaware that he fell asleep. Bianca is nowhere to be seen, but Adam can hear the shower running, and sees Drew's battered, mud-soaked sneakers sitting on the laundry room floor, along with a soaking wet tank tossed in the corner.

There's a loud rattle outside, and when Adam looks up he's greeted by heavy skies pelting down sheets of rain with a such a fury that he can barely see beyond their backyard. The lights flicker as the storm rages on, and there's another crack of thunder that shakes the blinds on the door.

Jesus, was Drew actually OUT in all of this?

Adam listens to Drew's wet footsteps from the bathroom to his bedroom, then the door swing shut behind him, and the slide of the deadbolt lock.

**VI.**

He and Bianca and Adam are playing poker while _Cabin Fever_ plays in the background. She and his brother have been on this horror movie kick for a while now, and they seem to go in waves of what type of horror they seem to have a sick attraction to this week. First it was zombies, then it was "classics" and now, apparently they've moved onto the "campier" horror movies. The new batch of movies don't creep him out any less, but for all the gore and gross-outs, it's still better than watching _The Strangers _or _The Last House On The Left_, which always creep him out way more than they should, because they're too real.

(Drew doesn't think he'll ever recover from that scene in _The Exorcist_ where that little girl does the spider walk down the stairs, or seeing her masturbate with the cross, which makes him shudder and feel disgusting inside. Like he just watched the most graphic porno ever, and his mom knows.)

He glances down at the cards he has in his hand. He's never been a fan of this game – too much math. He puts his hand down on the carpet and just watches his brother and Bee. They've sort-of made up, even if they never really had a fight to make up _from._ But after a few day of it being weird, they seem to have fallen back into a normal routine, except they don't touch, and they rarely spend time together unless it's with Adam.

Drew feels like there's something else that's supposed to be happening. He just doesn't know what the hell she's waiting on him to say, if she's expecting something to happen, or what the hell else to do about it. He's tired of thinking about it, honestly.

He's just _tired_, period.

_(Too much running, too many bad dreams, too much thinking about too much running and too many bad dreams.)_

Adam groans. "Seriously?"

Bianca grins slyly over her hand. Drew almost laughs at the pile of Starburst by her feet. If they played for real cash, she would have cleaned both of them out weeks ago.

"How are you beating the crap out of me?" Adam complains.

Drew smirks. "Maybe you suck."

Adam gives him the finger. "Whatever. Does anyone mind me taking a break from this ass-kicking to call for pizza?"

Bianca laughs. Adam narrows his eyes, and Drew can't help but think they're both right to think she's cheating. That pile _is _suspiciously large.

Bianca lays her cards down and stretches her body out on the carpet, arms and legs long and fluid and graceful. Her shirt rides up a little on her stomach, exposing the boot-shaped bruise Vince kicked into her stomach.

Adam's eyes zero in on the mark. "Whoa," he says. "What the hell?"

Bianca bolts upright, pulling her shirt down over the bruise. "Nothing," she says.

"That doesn't look like nothing," Adam says.

"Adam," Drew warns.

Bianca shrugs. "A little gift from Vince," she says, and Drew looks at her, mouth agape, at how she mentions it like it's nothing.

Adam's face freezes at the mention of the name. Drew's insides feel like doing the same, too.

"What happened?" his brother asks in almost a whisper.

Bianca starts arranging the Starburst into a spiral – the dark red in the center, slowly fanning out to the softer pinks and then the bright yellow on the edges. "I did something he didn't like. He let me know he didn't like it."

"What'd he do," Adam asks incredulously. "Kick you?"

Bianca doesn't answer, just adjusts some of the colors on her spiral.

Adam's face goes slack. "Seriously?"

"Adam," Drew says again, more loudly. "Stop."

"It sucks," Bianca says matter-of-factly. "But whatever."

Adam still stands there, staring at Bianca, who's arranging her spiral with a determined blankness on her face. Drew looks up at his brother, who shakes his head but doesn't say anything else, and Drew hopes he'll just drop it.

But of course he doesn't, because Drew should know that if there was ever a master of someone who most definitely does _not_ just drop things, it's Adam.

"What'd you do?" he asks.

"Would you shut up?" Drew snaps.

"He thought I was flirting with a guy," Bianca says without looking at Drew. Her voice sounds as flat and unimpressed as ever, but Drew knows that tone well enough to know that it really means she's upset or lying, because it always has that flatness to it.

"So he kicked you?" Adam almost shrieks, like he can't believe that one plus one equals bruise.

Bianca shrugs one shoulder, and then it hits Drew; how much he really, really, _really _fucking hates this life. Not just Vince or Anson or the thugs who got to him; they're not so real anymore as faceless, nameless shapes that lurk and linger in nightmares and darkest places of their days. But everything. He fucking hates it all so much he can barely think straight. Then he looks up and sees Adam in his sling, and hates it even more. He can't really remember being this _angry_, even all the times when he was in that cage.

He glances over at Bianca and sees her still sitting on the floor, calmly rearranging her winnings into a sunset-colored circle at her feet.

"Dude," she says without looking up at either of them, "hurry up and call the pizza in. I'm starving. And get pepperoni."

Drew clenches his jaw at her tone, the same flatness, and looks back at Adam, who is still looking stuck in place, glued to the floor. He meets his brother's eyes, and the two of them can't do anything but stare at each other, all the silent shit between them hanging in the air as Bianca sits quietly and pops a pink Starburst into her mouth, smoothing out the crinkled wrapper with her long nails.

Nobody moves, and after a moment Bianca just gets up and walks away.

"Wait," Adam says, paralysis broken. "Where are you going?"

"To pee," she says, and brushes past him.

Drew throws Adam a look before hauling himself up and following her.

"Bianca," he says, chasing her down the hall. "Bianca! Wait!"

She turns. "What?" she replies blandly.

He follows her down the hall to the bathroom. "Hold on," he urges.

"What," she asks. Her voice is even, but he can hear the spark underneath, and knows she's angry. "I can't pee?"

"Would you just hold on?" he says, and reaches out to grab her arm.

She jerks it back furiously. "Don't follow me," she says.

"Bianca," he says, as she slams the door in his face. "Bianca!"

Adam pokes his head down the hallway. "Man, let it go. Just give her some space."

Drew whirls around on him. "This is all your fault, you know?"

Adam straightens up indignantly. "How the hell is it my fault?"

"You had to keep digging about that!" Drew says. "I told you to shut the hell up about it and you didn't listen!"

"Okay," Adam says, taking a step closer to him and shoving him in the chest, "you need to chill the hell out. And back off. It's not my fault you're both serious damage control."

"I'm not crazy," Drew shouts.

"Says the crazy one!"

"What is going on down there?" his mom shouts from the foot of the basement stairs. "Adam! What are you shouting about?"

"I'm not!" Adam protests. "Drew's losing it!"

"Drew?" his mom starts coming down the stairs. "What's going on? Why all the screaming?"

She crosses her arms, looking at them expectantly.

Drew just gives him a look and huffs off, rolling his eyes. "Whatever."

"Drew!" his mother snaps. It's The Tone, the one that books no argument with it. "Come here, **now**."

For once, The Tone doesn't work on him. He grits his teeth and ignores it, throwing the bedroom door shut behind him.

**VII.**

Bianca doesn't talk to him for the rest of the night, and Drew doesn't see her at breakfast the next morning. They don't even see each other until his mother tells the two of them to pull the weeds out back for her, since it seems as if the rain has FINALLY stopped for the moment. They both head out there in shorts and garden gloves, tearing at the weeds in determined, sweaty silence.

He wants to say something to her, not sure what, but something, to bring up what happened the day before. But he's angry at her, for some reason, like she kept some big secret from him. Even though that's stupid.

She stops in the middle of yanking out another clump of weeds, noticing him watching her. Her eyes are blank, her face bored, and she tosses the weeds into the garbage bag in between them without acknowledging him further.

He wants to fight with her again. But then she looks up again, seeing him still staring, and sighs.

"What?" she says. She runs the back of her hand over her sweaty brow, streaking her forehead with dirt.

"You never…" he says, then stops. He's mad that his voice sounds so hurt. He wonders why it does.

Bianca rolls her eyes. "What?" she repeats, annoyed.

He shakes his head and looks back down at the clump of weeds at his feet. "Nothing," he says. "Never mind."

He turns back to yanking the weeds, feeling Bianca's eyes on him. She watches him for a moment, then goes back to her own pile, shaking her head as if to say, _whatever._

The two of them work in silence for a while, on separate sides of the yard. His mom has the kitchen radio on to some classic rock station, and the music alternates between Billy Joel and either Journey or Foreigner, he can never remember which one's which. Occasionally they play a "Golden Oldie", and then it's usually some man with a voice that reminds Drew of old black-and-white photographs and the crackling sound old records make. It's bouncy and chimey and the lyrics are corny and make him roll his eyes, but he kind of likes it.

This time, it's a woman, and she's singing seeing a weeping willow, cryin' on its pillow (since when do they have pillows, anyway), "maybe he's cryin' for meeeee…"

Old songs are always so sappy, he thinks.

Every now and then, he'll sneak glances over at her, still bent over her share of soil and stems, wearing a pair of his mom's old gloves and a baseball cap that belongs to Adam, curls bunched at the nape of her neck. Her t-shirt clings to her in the heat, showing off the perfect curve of her back he loves to trace with his hands and tongue in the dark every night – or at least, _did_, before things went to shit. Again.

Drew wishes he had shades, too, but he's too sun-lazy to go inside and get them from his bedroom. He's sitting on the patio furniture with a bottle of water, and when he puts it down, he wipes his palm down his face, the condensation dripping off the bottle mingling with the sweat pouring down his face. He can taste the saltiness on his lips, a metallic sweetness to it that once again reminds him a little too much like blood. He banishes the thought from his mind, focusing on pulling the weeds instead.

Turns out, the late July sun is too hot for him to focus on anything except the task at hand. It's got a weird hypnotic quality to it, with the buzzing of bees in the garden to the smell of honeysuckle in the air, the heat shimmering off the pavement in glossy waves. Drew can hear the busy city streets just over the park, and for some reason, all the rain they've been having lately and the slick pavement only makes the roar of the highway louder.

The letter about the uniforms the other day reminded him, for the first time, how close school is. It's funny, when he thinks about it, how endless this summer has seemed, and how he never thought of school until now. Before, he would do everything in his power to NOT think about summer ending, but this time, he legitimately forgot school ever WOULD start again.

Maybe it's just because of everything that's happened. With the prom and the shooting, then all the lawyer stuff and Bianca, wondering about Katie and Bianca, breaking up with Katie and getting together officially with Bianca.

He remembers Bianca telling the lawyer that she didn't know how she'd avoid jail time. Looking at him with tears and mascara running down her face, gun in hand, crying, "I did bad stuff, too". Her nightmares, still seeing Vince. Her telling him that she'd eventually fuck up his life, like she fucked up everything else. Like her only role in life is to destroy things. Like she isn't the good person he knows he is.

Sometimes, he tries to look back and remember a "defining" moment when their awesomely hot hook-ups went to something more than that. He used to think it was the night Anson died, but he knows now it was way before that. Sometime before that, something shifted between them, and he's not sure quite when or where.

He tries to remember a time when the kisses they shared became more than just sexy. When the looks they shot each other became less about want and more about…about him wanting just _her_, and not anything else. And even now, after they've basically stared down the end of the world, he doesn't know how it all happened; the rush of him saving her and her saving him, all the fear and secrets and losing everything, grief and sex and _need_. It sort of just bleeds together, like the days of this endless summer.

He's never made that kind of commitment. Hell, all of his previous relationships – even Katie, to some extent, he has to admit – were about avoiding that kind of commitment as easily as possible. No labels, no long term, certainly no "I love you".

He wants to think about her and him, and something that has a longer future than an afternoon. Or this summer.

Except, if things keep up like they have been, who knows. The thought crosses his mind like a shadow, and he goes back to weeding the garden, ignoring the ache in his gut. Or trying to, anyway.

**VIII.**

The radio is playing from the windowsill, and Bianca follows the tune. She backtracks a moment when she catches herself humming to "Heat of the Moment", and can't help but snicker to herself. Asia. Lame. If she hears this song again, she might have to kill herself.

It's suffocating out here. Even with her hair in a bun and buried under a baseball cap the sun beats down impossibly, loose wisps of curls clinging to the back of her bare neck and sweat stains her t-shirt like Rorschach blots.

She grabs the weeds with determined fierceness, more intent on ignoring Drew with every yank and jab she makes into the dark earth. It used to be like sandpaper, but all the rain made it loose and smooth, so the weeds come out right at the roots, water seeping out of the ground with every strike she makes.

Once, she accidentally yanks a flower from the ground, and stands there for a moment holding the stem, staring at the bright orange and yellow blossom. She wishes she could just stick it back in the ground and hope Mrs. Torres didn't see it, but then she's reminded that once you pick a flower, it's already dead, and that she's holding something in her hand that a second ago was alive.

Morbid. So fucking morbid. She throws the stem into the trashcan, and continues yanking out the weeds.

It happens without warning, so suddenly that there's no time to cover ears or close windows. There's an incredible crack of thunder that feels like the sky is literally ripping in two, and then there's a ferocious downpour of rain so thick and hard that it's like being pelted with stones.

Bianca hears Drew yell "shit!" and duck downward, as if that's going to stop the onslaught, before hightailing it back into the house. Bianca follows him, arms out and staggering blindly, hoping she doesn't trip over something because the rain is so heavy she can barely see in front of her as she gropes for the door and for dryness.

Just as suddenly as the rain hit, it stops, and now she's being hit with a freezing A/C that's even colder than usual now that she's soaking wet. She stands for a moment, frozen and shivering in her dripping clothes, before slipping her shoes and drenched socks off, heading down to the laundry room.

Drew follows behind her, but doesn't seem to be paying much attention. When they get to the washing machine, Bianca hesitates a half-second before stripping her shirt off, the soaking fabric peeling away from her clammy skin like adhesive. She tosses it in the wash, along with the dirty socks and the cut-offs she was wearing, until she's standing in her underwear and bra in the middle of the laundry room.

Drew doesn't even bother to hide the fact that he's watching her; he gapes at her up, taking in her goosebumped body, the curves of her breasts, the shape of her legs. His eyes trail upward until they finally meet her eyes, and when they meet – it feels like for the first time in weeks – they're positively _glowing_ with something powerful. The rain outside battering the windows only makes the air crackle with whatever it is even more.

The shiver goes down her spine like a lightning rod, but she shoves it off and turns towards the washer, determined to not let her skin ripple with it. She tosses her dirty clothes in the washing machine, then snaps her fingers at Drew without turning back to him.

"Give," she says, not caring how peevish her tone sounds.

Drew is still staring at her, she can feel he is, so she turns around and sees his eyes taking in her ass. They snap back up to meet her eyes when she does, still blazing as ever.

"Give me your shirt," she repeats, waving her hand at him.

He doesn't lose eye contact with her as he peels it off, tossing it at her. She catches it, throwing it into the washer with more force than necessary. She gives him another look, and off come Drew's shorts and socks, until they're both standing there in their underwear, the storm and mutual frustration whirring between them, thickening the air like a tornado. They just stare at each other, neither willing to back down first.

**IX.**

Drew watches her as she tosses his clothes in the wash. Her bra and underwear stick to her from the rain, and when he peels off his shorts he's surprised they don't catch on the edge of the raging fucking hard-on he's got going. He closes his eyes and mumbles under his breath, trying to force himself to calm down.

When he opens his eyes, he's no less hard and Bianca is staring at him, hands on her hips. He thinks that maybe he should have actually gone to therapy like his mom used to suggest, because maybe he'd be able to calm himself down right now. Maybe he'd be able to talk himself out of pushing her against the washing machine, and who gives a fuck if his mom and brother are still home. Or yanking her to his bedroom to dry-hump against the locked door before barely making it to the bedspread. Or, you know, the couch. It's a whole lot closer.

_What the fuck are we doing?_ He thinks, then pushes it away. He doesn't particularly want to think about what they're doing – or really not doing – right now.

They take each other in. Drew can see the marks on her back and belly from Vince, although they've faded to green mostly. Her eyes are too hard and almost angry against the white of her face, washed out under the lights of the laundry room's bare bulb.

For some reason, he feels oddly self-conscious.

Then it disappears, and he stares back, waiting for one of them to back down.

Kissing her? When did that happen? Doesn't know, but suddenly his mouth is on hers, he's opening his mouth and her tongue is there, and their mouths turn from sloppy to furious in record time.

Hands are everywhere before he knows he's even moving them – up her naked chest, to her breasts, capturing them in his rough hands, moving to her face, flying, needing, desperately afraid of not being able to touch her all of a sudden.

She bends backward at his touch, and they bump against the cold metal of the washing machine. He pins her arms down at her sides and attacks her neck, and swears he's going to lose it when he hears her gasp like she's drowning, head tossed back and wet hair tangling in his mouth as he sucks and bites and licks, like he could devour her. His dick is so hard it throbs, and he pushes against her body, desperate to relieve the ache.

His hands come around her back and in a flash her bra is tossed aside, and he's cupping both her breasts in his hands, pressing her harder against the machine as he attacks her neck and chest with his ravaging mouth.

With a sound that reminds him of unsticking a shoe from a mud puddle, Bianca's mouth surfaces from his own. His mouth already feels too cold with the loss.

"Wait," she gasps.

He goes after her mouth again, greedily nipping at her lips. He can see his own nail marks on her breasts from digging into the skin, can feel the scratches on his own chest stinging slightly. He tangles his tongue with hers, but then her mouth closes, pushing him out as her hands shove him backwards.

"Stop," she says breathlessly, and he does. They stand there for a moment, Drew still painfully hard and Bianca panting, then she slowly bends down and picks up her bra, never taking her eyes off of him. Slowly, she snaps the hooks back in place, and then walks away from him.

He doesn't turn to watch her go. Instead he focuses on a spot above the washing machine, standing perfectly still as he listens to her feet pad on the tile floor. Then he hears the swing and shut of the door, and even after she's long gone he still stands in that room, staring at that mark on the white walls.

**X.**

The rain has been pouring for fucking days now, and despite that little reprieve they had a few days ago Adam still feels like they should be taking a canoe to physio instead of the Camry.

Drew, of course, is taking this all in a stride. And by stride, Adam means that he's acting a bug the size of Vancouver crawled up his ass. His brother has been gritting his teeth in smoldering, palpable silence ever since they got in the car, making Adam wonder whoever called _him_ the "girl brother" certainly never met Drew when he's having a bitch fit.

"So are you just gonna ignore me now?" Adam persists. He knows the answer to this, of course – yes, Drew _is_ going to ignore him, he _is_ going to stop talking to him, and he _won't_ give Adam the time of day, so fuck off. He's just so utterly _sick_ of Drew's attitude lately, with the stomping around and the grumbling under his breath and the sudden fury that really, really scares Adam a lot more than he's willing to admit.

"Stop taking your pissy attitude out on me," Adam snaps to his brother's silence. "It's not my fault Bianca got sick of putting up with your shit. In case you forgot, she's got a mind of her own to do that if she wants."

Drew slams on the brakes. On the rain-soaked road, the car skids an impressive few feet, and Adam's heart jumps to his throat as Drew yells "fuck!" at the top of his lungs and tries to even out.

When the car finally starts to even out, Adam turns to his brother, whose jaw is jutted out and eyes are hard as he stares at the road ahead.

Twenty minutes later down a rain-spattered two-lane, and Drew doesn't say a word to him or take his eyes off the road. Adam can barely make out the tail lights of the cars in front of them, so instead of badgering Drew like he normally would he grits his teeth and thinks about everything he would say if he could. _You are the biggest idiot in the world. I swear, when they were giving out brains…seriously, dude, fuck you and your silences. I've had it with everything, and so has Bianca. We both want to help and we're so fucking out of ideas._

When the skies seem to lighten up just enough to where Adam can see the road ahead of them – long and congested even with the storm and covered by a heavy pewter sky, he turns to Drew, intending to have at him with everything he wants to say, but instead looks at Drew and just lets his jaw snap shut. The words just die on his tongue, and he slumps in his seat, feet on the dashboard, head rested on the window as he watches the storm.

**XI.**

He's lacing up his mud-soaked tennis shoes when he hears the rain come down again. Not that it's surprising, because it's been fucking monsooning like crazy lately, enough to make him actually think there might be something to those stupid Mayan calendar 2012 predictions, but it is a little annoying. Running in the soft rain isn't too bad, but when the downpours are this bad it's like nails digging into his skin.

He looks up and sees the rain coming down, a thick silver sheet cutting through the pitch dark night. Oh well.

"You can't seriously be thinking of going out in that."

Drew whirls around and sees Bianca at the foot of the basement stairs. Even though it's the middle of the night she doesn't look like she's tired, or like she's even been to sleep at all. Instead, she just looks mad. They haven't talked since their…whatever it was in the laundry room the other day, and aside from Bianca completely ignoring him at dinner the other night they haven't even seen each other since then. Not that he's been in the mood to see her.

He narrows his eyes. "Heading out for a run."

She stares at him. "Are you seeing this weather?"

He turns his back to her. "It doesn't bother me."

"Drew." Her bare feet run across the floor, and she grabs his arm. "Wait. Stop."

He turns back and levels his eyes to hers. "I won't be gone long," he monotones.

He pulls away from her, but she lets go of him and stands in his way, hands on her hips and eyes furious. He can tell she's not playing around. He stands squared off with her, hands hanging stupidly at his sides, wishing he could just push past her and go but unable to move from the spot, like she's weighed him down with those eyes.

"Drew Torres," she says in a voice that reminds him frighteningly of his mother's. "Stay here and talk to me. Now."

Bianca forces a breath through gritted teeth and looks like she's trying to remind herself not to completely _murder_ the shit out of Drew. He stares back at her, pretty sure his face is doing a bad job of looking cool and collected.

"I gotta go," he mumbles.

Before she can reply, he spins on his heels and heads out the door, running into the onslaught.

Behind him, he hears Bianca yelling his name.

"Don't you dare turn your back on me!" she yells. "Drew, stop it! Stop now!"

He doesn't want to turn around, but then her hand grabs him, and he looks back at her, her hair rain-flattened and pajamas soaked through already.

"What do you want me to say, huh?" he yells back, throwing her arm off. "About how I can't think about anything else except what happened? That I still have nightmares about getting beat up? About how my parents think I'm a murderer? About how he tried to kill all of us? About how Vince came at me with a _gun_ and shot my little brother?" He's out of breath, his voice almost gone from shouting over the thunderstorm. "Ask me why I don't sleep at night, Bianca."

"Then why don't you let me help you?" she says. A thunderclap bangs overhead, and they both jump. "Let me help you, Drew."

"Leave me alone, Bianca," he says.

"I can't!" she screams.

A bolt cracks the sky in two, and her face turns pure white under the flashing light. She opens her mouth again, but the words die between them as another light flashes in their eyes and a voice cuts across the storm.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Both of them turn to the back door. His mother is standing in the bonus room, bathrobe askew and hair rumpled with sleep, but eyes dark and angry. She shines a flashlight in their eyes, and over the wind and thunder he can hear the whirring of the alarm system, and the scream of a police siren coming down the road.

**XII.**

After Mrs. Torres gets done talking to the cops and lets them know it was all a mistake, she goes back to bed. Doesn't yell or even get mad, just says "we'll talk about it in the morning" and goes back upstairs without another word to Drew or Bianca.

Even after she leaves, Bianca stays in her huddled position on the couch, legs tucked up underneath her and tugging on a loose curl absently with one finger. It's like she's still waiting to be scolded. She rakes through her still-wet hair with her fingers, smelling the rain on herself.

There are footsteps creaking on the floor, and she looks up. Drew is standing by the bathroom door, his hair wet and flyaway from the shower he just took, giving it a wild and tousled look. He has dark rings around his eyes, and in a pair of sweat pants with the overlong hem covering his bare toes and a t-shirt, he looks rumpled and tired, so unlike the bristling, angry Drew she's seen lately.

"Hey," Drew says. After a moment where he seems to be guessing his next move, he comes over to her, sitting half-asleep on the couch. Bianca notices the distance between the two of them on the sofa cushions.

"Sorry," she manages to say. She wonders if this is the M.O. from now on; if she'll be apologizing to people for the rest of her life.

He shrugs. "S'not your fault," he mumbles.

"Still. Sorry," There's that word again. "How pissed is your mom?"

Drew rolls his eyes. "Pissed."

Bianca buries her face in the couch cushion. "Fuck me."

"Don't worry," he tells her. "She'll get over it."

"Unless she kicks me out in the morning," Bianca says.

"She won't," says Drew.

"How do you know?" she asks.

"She won't, Bianca," Drew insists in that way of his. "Don't worry about it."

Instead of snapping back at him, she pulls one of the pillows to her stomach and asks, "where were you going?"

Drew shifts uncomfortably beside her. "I wasn't."

"Wasn't what?"

"Going anywhere."

"You sure seemed like it," she says.

"I don't know!" Drew snaps. "I just needed to get out."

"At four AM?" she replies. "In the middle of a thunderstorm?"

Drew digs his index finger through the wool pattern of the blanket tossed over the back of the couch and starts pulling the links apart. "Guess so," he says.

Bianca watches him hand dig a hole in the blanket. In another minute, she's going to cry. And now she feels even stupider, someone who couldn't save herself even though that's what she always did. So before she does actually start to cry, she leans closer to him, closing one of her hands in his own. "Well, your strategy totally sucks."

He stares at the carpet. "Seemed like the best idea," he says after a beat.

"It still sucks," she says.

Drew doesn't volunteer any other information, and Bianca feels the familiar slow burn of worry and frustration in her chest.

"Do you want to break up with me?" His voice is a hurt whisper.

"No!" she says.

"Then what is it?"

She shakes her head. "God, I know you're not seriously _trying _to be this stupid, but really…"

His head snaps up. "Then be with someone less stupid."

"That's not the point!" she argues. "I can't stand to see you like this."

"I can take care of it," he insists.

"No, you can't," she says. "You aren't. Look, you tell me that I need to be okay with myself. But you can't really tell me that when YOU'RE the one who isn't okay! So don't sit there and tell me it's going to be okay when clearly you're not at all!"

"I was handling it just fine before you and Adam started getting onto me," he says sulkily.

"No, you weren't. You're just too stubborn to ask us for help."

"I don't want your help."

"Well, you sure need it."

"I don't need help with my own problems," he snaps. "I can handle them on my own."

Bianca shakes her head. "Clearly you're not."

Something suddenly clicks in her. "That's why you're always trying to talk to me and Adam. You like handling our problems so you don't have to deal with yours. Because it's easier to help us than it is to handle your own issues. So that's why you never talk about it."

She can tell by the way Drew's face changes that it's something he sort of understood, even if he never actually thought of it himself. "I can deal," he says, although his voice is quiet.

"No you can't," she says. "You never do. You just focus on our problems."

"Which are a lot bigger than mine," he insists.

"Says who?"

Drew throws up his hands. "Look at the grand scheme of things. Adam got shot, and you might be going to jail for being a drug dealer. On top of that, Adam's trans and you've got your problems with the cops anyway. And I'm the kid who doesn't have any problems except for being too stupid to pass Grade 10 math. So who has the suckier life here?"

"It's not about who has more issues," Bianca says. "Just because you don't have as much to deal with as me and Adam doesn't mean you don't have hard stuff, too. You have your own problems. It's not about comparing."

"How am I not supposed to?" he says. "Who cares about my crap when everyone I care about is dealing with bigger crap? No, I can suck it up."

"Why are you acting like our lives are your responsibility?" she asks

"Because it is!"

Bianca crosses her own arms over her chest and raises one eyebrow.

"In case it hasn't occurred to you," she says coolly, "Adam and I are big kids. Full-on training pants and everything. And we don't need you to hold our hands like we're helpless or something. Because we're not. Okay? We can take care of ourselves."

Drew still doesn't look at her, although she sees his face tighten as he closes his eyes. She sees the tense line of his shoulders, and feels her stomach drop. When did she lose him? Because it seems like she did a long time ago.

"Do you still blame me for all this?" she whispers. She isn't sure why she's asking this now, of all times, but it's something she's wondered for a long time, the more Drew seemed to distance himself from her. It's how it happened the last time.

He finally looks at her, eyes wide with surprise. "What?"

"For this." She gestures around the room. "This summer. This spring." Her fingers check off the marks. "Adam. Prom. Everything."

He stares at her.

Bianca looks down at her hand. His grip has gone slack around her wrist. "You did once," she reminded quietly.

They were in this same room when he said that, she remembers. It was another stormy day, the snow getting ready to fall, the sky cold and blank as someone turning their back on you. Bianca had gone over to check on him and he almost beat her with a nine iron before telling her he blamed her for this, all of it, and she promised she'd make everything right.

Tears well in her throat. Fat load of good _that_ fucking did.

"I don't," she hears Drew say.

She looks at him. "Are you sure? Without me, none of this would have happened."

She shakes her head and turns away, looking at the storm-streaked window. "You were right to blame me for it," she whispers.

Drew's eyes venture with her. Together they sit in silence, the hollow lights of the bonus room flickering as the storm continues to swell and pound against the door, like it's trying to make its way inside the house. The wind screams, and for a moment she thinks of That Night, the cold wind and the freezing air and the way she screamed but no one came, no one until he did.

"It didn't make anything easier," Drew says after a moment.

Bianca looks over at him, but he's still watching the rain.

"Do you still blame me?" she asks. Her voice is barely there above the wind and water.

He clenches his jaw when she asks that. His hand tightens around hers again, and he turns her arm over, his eyes trailing down to the bruises on her wrist. They've mostly faded, but they're still there, as well as the faded yellow of Vince's fingerprints on her arm.

His eyes soft, he takes his hand and strokes it over the place where her wrist was once so bloated that she couldn't close it into a fist. "No."

"Then talk to me," she urges. "Please, Drew. Please."

He shakes his head. "Like you need someone freaking out on you when you need to deal with shit."

"You need to take care of yourself if you want to be good to anyone," she says.

He sighs. The silence between them stretches out as the wind and rain swirls around them, tangling the noiseless dark with their inarticulate rage.

"Drew."

Drew seems so mesmerized by tracing the veins in her wrist with his thumb that for a moment it seems like he doesn't hear that she's talking to him. He doesn't look up at her until she takes her hand and turns it over in his, lacing their fingers together.

"I don't want to lose you," he whispers.

She squeezes his hand. "Then talk to me."

**XII.**

The numb feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach lifts the slightest bit when he feels her hand squeeze his. After weeks of avoiding it all, he suddenly wants to say everything, and feels like he might try to spit it all out at once, the words fighting for space on his tongue and slipping out faster than he can say them or make sense out of them all.

Instead, he stays silent, and looks up at Bianca's face. She waits, attentive, while conflicting emotions play across her face. But, to his relief, none of them look angry or frustrated.

"I can't take back what happened," Bee says finally.

"I know you can't," he mutters.

"I can't make you forget it, either," she says, turning to him. "I can't make myself forget it any better than you can. It's gonna have to be something you learn to live with. Just like me, and everything I did." She shakes her head. "Sometimes that's the only way to deal."

She looks at him, unblinking.

"But I love you," she finishes quietly. "I would do anything to help you, but I can't if you won't let me. And if you still feel the same way, then you need to let me try."

Drew reaches a hand over and touches her face. She flinches the smallest bit under his touch, but she takes a quick breath and then relaxes, letting their hands go slack.

"Okay," he says shakily.

She opens her eyes. It's hard to meet them, the openness there, and he can feel the thud of his heart as the beating speeds up.

"We'll do this," he whispers. His voice sounds hoarse. "And we'll be okay. Promise."

A small, slow smile starts to make its way across her face. "And you promise to let me help you this time?"

Instead of answering, he leans forward and kisses her softly. Slowly, he pushes back on her, and she lies down on the couch, with him hovering inches above her. Her hands come around the back of his neck, pulling them closer together, and his arms slide around her waist and up the small of her back. Outside, the rain keeps coming down as they breathe in the dark and don't let go.


	6. Epilogue

**Author's Note: IT'S FINALLY HEEEERE!**

**See? I TOLD you guys that I would have the epilogue posted sometime in the next millennia! Be forewarned, it's gratuitously sweet, but hey...there was so much angst in this story, I feel like a little cutesyness is warranted.  
**

**It's hard to believe I'm finally finished with this story. I feel like I've been working on it forever. I know this is probably redundant at this point, but thank you to everyone who reads and reviews this. The support means a lot and kept me writing this story even when it felt like pulling teeth and made me want to throw in the towel. **

**Again, thanks to necklace890 for all the help organizing this fic, as well as jay-ell-gee for being the World's Greatest Fic Supporter. They're both diehard Drew/Drianca fans and are a huge help to me. **

**I don't own Degrassi.**

**I.**

School is starting soon, but instead of acknowledging that they just keep acting like they have all the time in the world together. They have a picnic of chili cheese fries and vanilla shakes by the dogwood trees in the park, and go to the end-of-summer pool party at Dave's house with everyone. They hold hands in the car and fight over the radio stations. She teaches him how to change the oil in the car. They make love and breakfast like married people, and yell at each other over who ate the last of the chips.

He knows how she takes her coffee, and the way her hands move when she knots her hair into a bun, and the way she blinks on a lazy Sunday morning when she first wakes up to nothing but the two of them together, spending the quiet hours in bed. Adam is starting to get better and the doctors think he'll have full range of motion of his shoulder, and that makes Drew happier than anything he's heard in he can't remember how long. His father remarks at the dinner table that Bianca has a sharp eye for legal work and his mother makes a backhanded compliment to her about having a decent aptitude for a lawyer's work. And even though Bianca swears up and down he's making it up Drew swears she blushed when his mother told her that.

And maybe, as the days get easier, the dreams don't happen as much. And in spite of the fact that Bianca is more or less living with them, working full time at his dad's office and helping his mother unload the dishwasher and playing Wii Sports with Adam and Eli, wouldn't you know it, all the weirdness actually starts to feel something like a real, normal life.

It's a funny thing, having her around. They share the same secrets and live the same lies, but living with her in his house makes things feel righter than ever. He sinks back into the normalcy of a routine that evaded him after the events of Spring Break, having Michael Bay movie marathons with Adam and fighting with his mother over taking the trash out and shooting hoops with K.C. and Dave, working out with Owen to prep for football season.

His life is pretty much as calm and quiet and normal as it's ever been, but it wouldn't feel the same without Bianca. Like having her in his house now makes it a home, makes it a life.

**II.**

"So," Drew asks, "…it's all good?"

Bianca shrugs. "I'm on probation. On top of the probation I already have from before. And I have a ton of community service to do." She tosses the football usually sitting on Drew's dresser between her hands. "Oh, and I have a social worker assigned to my case who's going to do random drug tests every few weeks and Child Services home visits twice a month."

She tosses the ball up, then inexpertly snatches it back to her chest when it falls.

"As far as punishments go," she says, "it's not bad. You know, considering."

"It's a pretty sweet deal, I'd say," Drew says. He motions for her to pass the ball to him; she does, and it corkscrews into his chest. He makes a face at her, then passes the ball from one hand to the next. "What's a matter? Are you not happy about this?"

"I am," she says. She takes a seat on his bed, smoothing out the wrinkles in the sheets. "I just can't believe it's over. All of it."

Drew smiles. "Told you we'd find a way."

Bianca nods. "Guess we did," she murmurs.

Drew puts the football back on his dresser and takes a seat beside her. Gently, he reaches out and touches her cheek. "Are you sure you're okay?"

She sighs. "It's a little overwhelming. Just…feels like too much to have it end like this."

Drew presses his palm on her leg. "Almost didn't," he whispers.

"I know," Bianca says. "That's why it feels so weird."

She lays down on top of the covers, hands over her eyes.

"Feels like," she says, "…crawling out of a grave or something."

Drew lays down beside her. "So," he asks. "Does that make you a zombie?"

He laughs and she reaches over to swat him. He rolls away, just avoiding, and the two of them burst into laughter. A kind that feels so good, like they haven't done it in a while, so what the hell, they just keep doing it.

They fall onto the comforter together, arms and tongues tangled, legs wrapped around one another and hands all over as they slide their palms down their naked sides. They know that his brother is in the next room, and that his mother will be home any second, but that's part of what drives them, the thrill. Well, that, and the reminder that life doesn't have to be one constant struggle, that you can sometimes just be carefree and fall into someone else knowing there's no such thing as falling too far. This is a reminder that need isn't always tangled with loss, but is always wound with life.

Denim and cotton are tossed aside into a heap on the floor. Soon, they're spinning in a puddle of amber evening light, and it curves across the open plains of skin. Hands and tongues roam, tasting the sun and sweat off each other as they fold into one another, Bianca's curls brushing against his face, and she breathes his name into his ear like a secret she's just been told and can't quite believe is real.

It doesn't take long before anything else stops feeling real. Except, of course, the two of them. How their eyes turn liquid in the glowing fade of daylight. How Drew holds her face in his hands, and how she wraps her long legs around him, grinding them closer together, needing to feel _safe_, like she always does with him. How he breathes into her mouth and whispers something too naked for her to completely understand, but it slips, devoted and reverent, from his tongue to hers. How she groans raggedly, the only response she can give. And how their breath, their whispers, and their voices broke on each other's names, the only word either of them could say that the other one could completely hear.

They forget pain and anger, darkness and fear. Anything other than joy.

Because now, this is all they need to know.

They're safe, they're valued, they're needed. They are loved.

**III.**

Bianca has never planted flowers before in her life. But Drew is strangely good at it (his years of tutelage under the one and only Audra Torres). It's the way his hands are, easy and careful, parting the dark earth and creating space for things to live. He's gentle with them in a way that surprises her and doesn't at the same time. Still, it doesn't stop her from teasing him and calling him Martha Stewart, from taking stupid pictures of him with her iPhone and listening to him protest, laughing as he chases her around the yard with dirt-crusted hands, trying to take it away from her before she uploads them to Facerange.

It's weirdly soothing, to be able to plant flowers. Feeling the soft earth under her hands, giving way to her as she rakes her fingers through the sun-warmed soil and makes space for living things to grow. Instead of reminding her of the way the earth moves in her dreams, shifting and falling out from underneath her, here she's making a space for things to reach out, to gulp the free air, to be alive.

One night he randomly gives her a purple bloom from the pile of weeds that she helped his mom pull. He tickles the branch under her chin and grazes it over her cheeks. She laughs at him for it, giving her a weed and thinking he's being all romantic, but it kind of melts her.

No one's ever given her life before.

When the winds blow at night, it sometimes sounds like whispers, or bad dreams. She doesn't say anything to him, but knows he'd understand if she did.

So instead she just presses her body against his at night, pressing her face into his back, and wrapping her arms around him. Listens to him breathe.

The winds are going to blow away soon, and then it will be fall. The flowers are planted, their little world filled with life, but soon it will fade with the summer.

But it's okay. Because the change in seasons just means that there is another year coming; one free of gangs and guns, drugs and danger, terror and trials.

And anyway, life always comes back.


End file.
